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BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



They All Do It; 



Or, Mr. Miggs of Danbury, and His Neighbors. i6mo. 
Illustrated. Cloth, $i.oo. Paper, 50 cents. 



Life in Danbury. , 

Being a Brief but Comprehensive Record of the Doings of 
Remarkable People. i6mo. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.00. 
Paper, 50 cents. 



LEE &^ SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS, 
BOSTON. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WlNDOW; 



VIEWS OF SCOTLAND AND IRELAND. 



BY, .^ 



J. M.' BAILEY, 

THE DANBURY-NEWS MAN. 




BOSTON: 
LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. 

NEW YORK: 
CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM. 

1879. 



r 



liehartI 
ongressi 

BiyGTONi j 



THE 

OF CONGRESS! 



pWASHiyOTON 



Copyright, 1878, 
BY LEE AND SHEPARD. 

All rights reserved. 



I 



Electrolysed and Printed 

By Raftd, Avery, S^ Cotnpany, 

J17 Frayiklin Street, 

Boston. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. In which the Writer departs for Europe . . 7 

11. Which relates to the Arrival in Europe. . . 13 

III. Gives a First View of London 17 

IV. Relates entirely to the Beauty of England . ' 23 
V. Gives More Details of London 33 

VI. Gives an Off-Hand View of Parliament ... 43 

VII. An English Mob 49 

VIII. Is mainly devoted to describing how to get 

about London 54 

IX. Living in London 59 

X. Going to the Derby . 64 

XL Street-Scenes 77 

XII. In the Mildew 87 

XIII. Treats of the Bars and Bar-Maids 99 

XIV. Moth, Mildew, and Martyrs . no 

XV. A Ramble over London 120 

XVI. Through Petticoat Lane 133 

XVII. The Wonderful English Railways 140 

XVIII. Which gives a Dash into Rural England . . . 153 

XIX. Brings us to English Farm-Life 164 

XX. More about the Farm 172 

XXI. A General Attack on Ruins 181 

XXII. English Charity 192 

XXIII. Amusements 198 

XXIV. Tells, among Other Things, what the English 

THINK OF Us 205 

XXV. An Appalling Custom 214 

XXVI. Skips from the Cab to the Hearse 224 

5 



6 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER ^AGE 

XXVII. In a Grocer's Cellar 226 

XXVIII. The Home of Bunyan 235 

XXIX. In which Shakspeare is shown up 240 

XXX. Gives a Few of the Peculiarities of an 

English Winter 248 

XXXI. Full of Extraordinary Facts 255 

XXXII. Brings us into Scotland 264 

XXXIII. Edinburgh still further considered. ... 275 

XXXIV. Scudding through the Highlands 286 

XXXV. A Ruined Upburst . .' 294 

XXXVI. Highland Features 303 

XXXVII. Elgin and its Sights 315 

XXXVIII. Throwing the Caber 321 

XXXIX. A Jumping-off Luxury 331 

XL. Astonishing Facts about Wages 336 

XLI. A Sample of the Good Old Times 344 

XLII. The Terrors of a Jaunting-Car 353 

XLIII. Doing the Causeway, and McDooley . . . 363 

XLIV. Getting on the Wall 374 

XLV. A Meditative Pennsylvanian 380 

XLVI. An Ancient Candy-Pull 388 

XLVII. Going to an Irish Fair 401 

XLVIII. Owning a Whole Graveyard 414 

XLIX. Starting for America 420 

L. A Treatise on Limerick . . . 424 

LL Blaspheming Mendicants 430 

LIT. Scenery and Lies 440 

LIII. a Newly-arrived Yankee 448 

LIV. Across the Country in a Mail-Cart .... 456 

LV. Peculiar Features in Dublin 461 

LVI. In which the Writer takes Leave of his 

Readers and a Good Share of Himself . 471 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER I. 

- IN WHICH THE WRITER DEPARTS FOR EUROPE. 

THERE was nothing particularly attractive about " The 
Abyssinia" as we came in sight of it at the Jersey-city 
dock on the afternoon of April 15, 1874. We saw before 
us a long, narrow, dingy black craft, with a formidable 
smoke-stack in the middle, three aspiring masts, staring 
dead-lights, and a forlorn and very uncomfortable air about 
all. It stood so far out of water as to actually need the 
huge hawsers holding it at the dock to keep it from tipping 
over where it was. It seemed as if the great city had 
slopped over into " The Abyssinia," because of the threatened 
rain. The passage-ways, decks, and staircases were crowd- 
ed with people ; and such anxious, struggHng, crowding 
people ! I never before saw so ostentatious a crowd. We 
got into the wrong passage, of course, and climbed over a 
platform, and met some half-dozen people climbing the 
other way. But everybody was good-natured and bruised. 
Finally we reached our stateroom, and deposited the lug- 
gage. From here we went on deck, the passage up the 
stairway being a continuous struggle. Out doors was as 
crowded as in. Scores of people with bouquets and um- 
brellas blocked up every passage. No one of the passengers 

7 



8 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

knew any thing of the ins and outs of the boat, and the 
visitors were equally as ignorant. On the pier was scarcely 
less confusion of ideas and legs, as we could see from the 
deck. To make matters worse, it commenced to rain. 
Everybody hurried down stairs ; but the close air drove the 
greater part of them back again. Then came the signal for 
departure, followed by a desperate rush together of the con- 
tending forces, — visited and visitors. Elderly gentlemen, 
with long umbrellas and high silk hats, were carried off their 
feet, and jammed against total strangers. Fat women, with 
the latest style of spring bonnets on their heads, and huge 
bouquets of flowers in their chubby hands, were kissed by 
the wrong parties, and squeezed into grotesque shapes by 
enthusiastic relatives. 

It was the first time I was ever kissed on the tip end of 
my nose ; and I can't say that the sensation is an enjoyable 
one, especially if administered by a stranger with a solitary 
and aggressive front-tooth. 

At last the boat was being swung off. The last hand and 
lip pressure was made. A tall, thin gentleman took a final 
hurried kiss, knocked off his hat, and stepped through the 
crown of it, and shot up the gang-plank. The people on 
the pier swung their handkerchiefs, and hallooed their fare- 
wells, while the vessel gracefully backed off into the channel, 
and — was ignominiously towed seaward by a black and dis- 
reputable looking tug. 

And thus we left the dear land, standing on the deck, with 
the breaking clouds and struggling sunlight above us, and 
straining our eyes toward the fast-receding city. 

After dinner the thoughtful arranged their staterooms for 
a ten-days' occupancy ; while the thoughdess cro\wled upon 
deck, and amused themselves in looking at the stars, and 
watching the water, or peering about the ship, and incau- 
tiously feeling of strange-looking pipes which were subse- 
quently discovered to contain hot water. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 9 

There were no violent demonstrations toward acquaint- 
ance, unless we may except the long man in long overcoat, 
a dilapidated hat, and long chin-whiskers, who, having made 
twenty voyages across the ocean, and been spared by an 
inscrutable Providence to start on the twenty-first, was now 
enlightening all on board on such points as the weather, the 
sails, the course, and the prospects. 

There was a lazy swell to the ocean, which gave the vessel 
a graceful, rolling motion that was much admired. 

The length of admiration varied with the strength of the 
constitution of the admirers. When a man got his fill of 
admiration he made for the rail precipitately, and cast his 
bread upon the waters, neither hoping nor caring for a 
return. A visible thinness in the congregation was painfully 
conspicuous ; and, by the time all the stars were out, the 
deck was cleared for action. Some lingered to see the stars ; 
lingered to gaze dreamily into the dark blue waters ; then 
they shot down stairs, and screamed for a basin. 

There was a fair sprinkling of passengers on deck the 
next day ; for, although not a calm day, it was nevertheless 
pleasant, and the sea was not rough. Those who were not 
affected kept well on their legs, and alternated a look sea- 
ward with a scrutiny of the private property of ^the vessel. 
Of those afiected, a few had the good sense to remain on 
deck, and " fire away " at. the waves ; but much the greater 
number went below, and, locking their staterooms, wrestled 
alone with the great agony. As they convalesced, they, 
with few exceptions, returned to the deck ; every day bring- 
ing new additions to the sitters and promenaders. But many 
kept to their rooms during the entire trip. It is the nature 
of the disease to allay the thirst for sight-seeing ; and it is 
only by a great effort of the will that the victims can over- 
come the inertia, and keep on deck. 

The terrors of seasickness may be modified by keeping 
a well-ordered stomach on the day of sailing. Bidding 



lO ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

champagne farewells and whiskey-punch adieus to friends at 
home is a sure forerunner of the sickness in its worst 
form. There was the case of young Munson of Danbury, 
who went to Europe last season. Born of Puritan parents, 
and reared amid the refining and wholesome influences of 
a New- England home, he carefully dieted himself the week 
before sailing. He ate freely of oatmeal and bran bread, 
and eschewed greasy food and stimulating drinks. The 
night before sailing he went down to New York in the flush 
of health and hope, and, stopping at Norwalk to a clam-bake, 
filled up with roast clams and gin, getting down to the city 
just in time to take the boat. For three days he pranced 
around on the edge of eternity, kicking up his heels, swing- 
ing his arms, and turning himself inside out in a most repre- 
hensible manner. He held then a position in the Third 
National Bank ; but, on returning home, he did not report 
for duty for a whole week, fearing that, among other things, 
he had thrown up this berth. 

None of the officers of "The Abyssinia" lost a day 
through seasickness. 

The second day was much like the first, with the excep- 
tion that it grew cooler at night. On the morning of the 
third day it rained, and the rolling motion increased. The 
wind was fickle, and the sailors were kept busy with the sails. 
To see them climbing the dizzy heights of the masts, with 
the rain pouring down upon them (for they are not per- 
mitted to carry umbrellas), made a most thriUing spectacle. 
The fourth day was equally unpleasant. On the fifth, sixth, 
seventh, and eighth days the vessel rolled from side to side 
without intermission, the wind blew stiflly across the beam 
(coming from the starboard side, wherever that is), and the 
rain and flying spray kept the deck comparatively free of 
people. Of those who ventured up stairs during this con- 
tinuous and disagreeable siege, the ladies huddled into the 
cabin on deck provided for them ; the gentlemen took to 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. II 

the smoking-cabin, also on deck, or sheltered themselves in 
the lee of the smoke-stack. This last place was a favorite 
resort for the steerage passengers, who, chewing plug tobacco, 
and spitting against the wind, added a charm to the occa- 
sion that was indescribable. 

The smoking-cabin is the best patronized. Here the pas- 
sengers of sporting tendencies gather to buy and sell pools 
on the time the vessel makes in the twenty-four hours ; and 
here is done some of the proudest and grandest lying ever 
heard. It is astonishing the amount of extraordinary facts 
an idle brain will evolve. 

No pen can do justice to the suffering entailed by the 
rolling motion of the vessel. On the wet deck it is impos- 
sible to move any distance, or to stand still a moment, with- 
out grasping a rope or guard. At the dining-table the crash 
of rolling and sliding dishes, and the splashing of their spill- 
ing contents, is deafening and disheartening. The stewards 
and waiters walk on the sides of their feet, and plank down 
the right dish in the right place with a precision that is 
supernatural. Each of the eight tables is provided with 
racks, which keep the plates from sliding way across, but do 
not always prevent their coming together, and depositing 
in one's lap a pleasing variety of soups, ice-water, and hot 
gravies. But in the staterooms the greatest misery is expe- 
rienced. A stateroom has no free walls. Opposite the two 
berths is a lounge, which can be made into a third berth. 
To sit on this lounge, and to be thrown to the opposite side, 
with the skin of your advanced leg scraping the under edge 
of the lower berth, and your head smashing against the up- 
per berth, is a sensation I have experienced about eleven 
hundred times in the past week. When I went alone, I 
didn't mind it so much ; but to have Mrs. Bailey avalanche 
atop of me, and with her weight increase my momentum, 
has almost made me swear. Any boy who is striving for a 
prize on the grounds of a strictly upright life should forego 



12 ENGLAND FROM A BACK- WINDOW. 

the pleasure of seeing Europe until after he has got his 
prize. 

And so we have been tossed about, and bumped and 
bruised, for seven long days and nights, until every bone 
aches, and every muscle is stretched to its utmost tension, in 
the constant effort to maintain a balance. Five times have 
I gone into my stateroom and found Mrs. Bailey wedged 
under the lower berth, where she had been thrown by a sud- 
den lurch of the vessel ; and for two hours after each occa- 
sion she refused to speak. This is rather remarkable, I 
believe — in a woman. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 3 



CHAPTER II. 

WHICH RELATES TO THE ARRR^AL IN EUROPE. 

THE last day of a long ocean-voyage is signalled by 
feverish expectation. I shall never forget the night 
before our arrival at Queenstown. We had expected to 
sight land all the afternoon ; and, as night closed upon us, 
each one on deck strained his eyes in the direction he had 
decided land should appear. 

Then the wind changed to the head : all the sails were 
taken indoors, and we steamed through the rolling seas and 
an intense fog. It was an excitable evening to the passen- 
gers ; and I imagine the fog and the proximity of a danger- 
ous coast made the sail a matter of interest to the boat 
people. With a few others I remained on deck till after 
midnight, hanging on to the sails and ropes, or breaking 
some of my bones against things I didn't know the name of. 

In the morning I awoke to find the vessel in a still sea. 
It was a still sea ; but there was no land in sight. The vessel 
had stopped, and the fog permitted us to see several small 
pilot-boats about us. 

There was an animated conversation going on between 
Capt. Haines of " The Abyssinia," and a short-necked, red- 
faced scoundrel in the pilot-boat near us. The pilot-boat 
had given us its rope, but was afraid to come up alongside, 
under the impression that the ponderous " Abyssinia " might 
step on it. The morning air was rent by the contending 



14 ENGLAND FROM- A BACK-WINDOW. 

voices ; and, as neither party appeared to know what the other 
was saying (which is really not necessary in this country), 
an indescribable charm was added to the scene. 

The pilot finally consented to be drawn aboard of our 
boat, and we steamed away again. Then we went down 
stairs to breakfast, and discussed the probabilities of the 
landing with an excellent bill-of-fare. After breakfast we 
went back to the deck, and were almost immediately elec- 
trified by the bold outlands of Queenstown Harbof. We 
could see the green fields, the earthworks, the hedges, and 
the trees. Every object that went to make up the dear 
sight was scrutinized most intensely. 

We moved by and into the bay ; but none of us took our 
eyes from the land one instant. 

There had been a time when it had seemed that the waste 
of troubled waters was to forever accompany us ; that the 
land which we had so gladly left was never again to greet 
our sight. 

But here was the glad earth before us ; not a myth, not a 
dream, but the dear, solid land, with its" cobble-stones, pitch- 
holes, and fever and ague. 

Not a living soul on board of that vessel thought to in- 
quire what kind of land it was. 

I was glad of it. 

The custom-house tender came out from Queenstown to 
meet us, and took the mails and several passengers and their 
luggage. This was the first perceptible fracture in the social 
fabric nine days of sea-life had reared. 

Next to a sight of land, the gi-eatest surprise was the sud- 
den appearance of the male passengers in high silk hats. 
To have men, whom you have seen every day, and every hour 
of the day, for ten days, in low caps or rumpled soft hats, 
appear in high hats, is to work a transformation that is most 
exciting. I haven't had any thing work me up to such a 
degree since the surrender of Cornwallis. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. t^ 

Singularly enough, although we had made the acquaint- 
ance of these people within a week, and had no reasonable 
prospect of ever seeing or having any thing to do with 
them in the future, and knew nothing whatever of their past, 
there was a twinge of regret at their going. We looked 
over the boat at them as they took their departure, and 
waved what was handy as long as they were in sight ; and 
then we moved on to Liverpool. 

In the evening, with the fog and moonhght struggling in 
the air, we promenaded the deck, sang our songs, told over 
our plans, and dreaded the morrow, — the morrow that was 
to break us up, and scatter us all over a continent. 

One of the sad episodes of the evening was my borrowing 
a knife from a smoker of plug tobacco to peel an orange for 
one of the ladies. 

At six o'clock the next morning we reached the harbor of 
Liverpool. 

Two custom-house boats came off for the luggage and 
passengers. The former was taken into the lower cabin, and 
the latter followed after, — both for inspection. I had heard 
of the custom inspection at foreign ports, and had come to 
have a wholesome dread of the ordeal. I hurried down the 
— the — the companion-way, I believe they call it, with a 
hundred others, and waited and watched while the uni- 
formed J^osse went about among the packages, scrutinizing 
the contents or the owners. A New- York friend, with his 
own and the luggage of several lady-friends, passed safely 
through the examination in five minutes after the beginning, 
and was up on deck, looking for a light, inside of another 
minute. Being open to hints, and finding the dingy dark- 
ness and the crowded condition of the lower cabin unbeara- 
ble, I slipped a shilling into the hand of one of the inquisi- 
tors ; and a moment later my luggage was passed, and I was 
also on the deck, looking for a light. 

From " The Abyssinia " we were transferred to the tender ; 



1 6 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

and a half-hour later were deposited on land, which we 
pressed most affectionately with our feet. 

It was Sunday, and the city was very quiet. As we drove 
through its streets, we watched each building and face with a 
fervor that was compHmentary to the former, but was hardly 
enjoyable to the latter. 

We never hear of Liverpool unless in connection with com- 
merce of a cosmopolitan character. It has no specialty in 
trade to fasten it on the mind of the general reader ; it has 
no antiquities ; it has no history. There is nothing about 
this place in common with the country of which it forms a 
part ; and to the tourist it is simply a landing-place. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1/ 



CHAPTER III. 

GIVES A FIRST VIEW OF LONDON. 

THAT London differs in all important and in many 
unimportant features from the metropolis of Ameri- 
ca is a fact that grows upon the visitor, and the degree of 
his sense of the fact is proportionate to his stay in the city. 
This impression would be received the moment he drove 
through its streets, if he came direct from New York to it ; 
but he first lands at an English-American town, where the 
contrasts so blend, that the distinguishing fines are dufied to 
his comprehension. He approaches London's characteris- 
tics through a gradation of sensations ; and, on his arrival in 
the great metropolis, the only feeling of surprise he experi- 
ences is at the absence of afi surprise. 

If he is a close reader of history, he has already formed in 
his mind how London should look. He understands that 
Liverpool is essentially cosmopofite ; and the small shock he 
feels on arriving there in no way affects his picture of Lon- 
don, — a city (and he repeats the reflection with unction) 
that is one of the oldest in existence. 

When he reaches London he is annoyed, as the promi- 
nence of its modern completely hides the vestiges of its 
ancient or historical features. 

London, like Liverpool, is built of brick, — the same kind 
of brick too, only a trifle dingier if possible, — not the red 
brick we have in America, although that is profusely used in 



1 8 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

the country mansions, but a dull brown or yellow brick. 
The most of them are mottled with these two tints; but 
many are wholly yellow, or wholly brown. 

In a new building the effect is more curious than grati- 
fying ; but a few months of the smoke they have here es- 
tablishes a uniform tint. 

An American is in time overpowered by the lack of archi- 
tectural adornment in the buildings, and the consequent 
unifomiity in their construction. The lack of variety and 
beauty is just as conspicuous in the streets devoted to the 
dwellings of the aristocracy as in the lanes of the working- 
people. 

Buckingham Palace, the residence of the Queen, is an 
immense building, but not especially attractive in its ex- 
terior. 

Marlborough House, the home of the Prince of Wales, is 
a red brick structure ; large, but in no wise remarkable, not 
even as a bonded-warehouse in New York. 

I have seen a host of finer railroad depot-buildings than 
is St. James's Palace. 

I have always had my own ideas of a palace. Probably 
they corresponded with the ideas of others, and possibly 
they did not ; but they rose immeasurably above square 
three-story buildings with flat roofs. 

Reading of palaces has lost its charm for me forever. 

Those of the houses which are not of flat surface are of 
crescent-shaped front. AU the roofs are of tile or lead. 
There are no shingle roofs to rot away and leak, and make 
the owner swear ; and no tin roofs to turn the sunshine into 
a curse and annoyance, or keep you awake when it rains, 
thinking of tinker's dams. 

But the array of chimney-pots is calculated to absorb and 
astonish the stranger. In this department the English 
excel, and whatever of money or taste they have to spare 
is lavished on chimney-pots. Each chimney has two or 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 9 

more. They are of red, black, and white colors. They are 
made of the tile clay, and in variety of shapes are equal to 
the idiosyncrasies of a stove-pipe. They are all the way 
from two feet to ten feet in height. No family is without 
them. 

The front-door to every house has its letter-box. Nearly 
all of the doors are closed by spring-locks ; and, in conse- 
quence, catching the skirts of your coat in the door in pass- 
ing out is a most embarrassing proceeding, especially if the 
street is very public, and the housekeeper very deaf. 

I speak from experience. 

I would respectfully call the attention of the American 
people to the fact that the knob is in the middle of the front- 
door. It is a stationary knob, and is valueless as a means 
of entrance, but is a comforting article to hold on to when 
immersed in thought. A man rarely attempts a second time 
to use it for any other purpose. 

Each front-door has a knocker, generally of iron, and 
quite frequently large enough to carry a boy into a circus, or 
buy five packs of fire-crackers. In addition to the knocker 
are two or more bells, the number depending upon the num- 
ber of tenants in the building. In such neighborhoods as 
that of the Seven Dials there are four-story buildings (for- 
merly tenements), occupied by attorneys, undertakers, work- 
ers in metals, and other people, which have seven bells to 
the door. Those who can afford it have their names on a 
little brass plate to their bells, and their customers have no 
trouble. 

Where opulence does not reign, the customer has an 
opportunity of trying all the bells, and bringing a variety of 
people down stairs before he hits on the right man. 

This can never fail to improve the most indifferent mind. 

Each door is not only always kept locked, but has its 
chain. You remember, of course, of " the clanking chain as 
the ponderous door swung open, revealing a dark, crouching 



20 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

figure," &c. The chain is a chain without doubt, hanging 
listlessly down the door-casing, but looking as little like clank- 
ing as a pint of soup. 

There are no window-blinds to the dwellings of London ; 
but there is a profusion of lace curtains. It is a sad thing 
to think of a city of nearly four milHon people being window- 
blindless ; but the curtains permit one to look out and see 
what the neighbor across the way has on, with a feeling of 
comparative comfort and safety. 

The shops fairly boil over with plate glass fronts. They 
are not roomy nor elaborate inside ; but their windows make 
the finest show of any shop-windows in the world. They are 
ablaze with goods arranged in most tempting ways. I came 
near to saying they are ablaze with light ; but the better class 
of shops are not lighted at all just now, closing right after 
seven o'clock in the evening, thus giving the hard-worked 
clerks plenty of time to store their minds with theatricals 
and punch. The shops on the Strand and similar second- 
class avenues blaze away until nine o'clock. The cigar-shops, 
chop-houses, and many of the fish-markets, keep going all 
the while, I gu'ess, as I have found them open, an^ inclined 
to be sociable, as late as an hour after midnight ; and a man 
who doesn't shut up business at midnight will never get 
another such opportunity. 

I have said the shops close early. It is a lamentable fact 
in this connection, that they do not open early. Go along 
any of the business-streets as late as ten o'clock, and you 
will find men and boys with coarse aprons before the shops, 
burnishing the brass plates, scouring the stone sills, and 
sweeping the walks ; and, as late as eleven o'clock, the clerks 
and proprietors are arranging the goods for the day's display. 

Every other store prominently announces the fact that it 
is doing business by "special appointment to H. M. the 
Queen," or " to H. R. H. the Prince of Wales." 

Feeling an unquenchable longing one afternoon to see 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 21 

the Queen, I stepped into a shoe-store which announced 
itself as attending to her shodding, and waited very patiently 
for an hour for her to call in " to see if that shoe was fixed ; " 
but I did not see her. "By special appointment," &c., has 
stared me in the face at every turn ; but I bore it uncom- 
plainingly until I saw over a stovepipe-hat-store the announce- 
ment, " By special appointment to H. M. the Queen." 

Then I caved. 

By a careful and unbiassed calculation, I learn that there 
are at present, administering to the various needs of Queen 
Victoria, ii,ooo grocers, 2,150 stationers, 8,093 dry-goods 
merchants, 1,608 tinners, 16,040 butchers, 1,100 jewellers, 
3,840 tobacconists, 243 hatters, 1,240 carriage-makers, 
26,432 miscellaneous. 

No wonder the country is in debt. But business is stimu- 
lated. 

London is called a dingy and dirty city. The houses in 
London are dull in appearance, made so by the smoke from 
its thousands, and thousands of chimneys. The humidity 
and weight of the atmosphere keep down the smoke among 
the buildings ; and the smoke itself is most villanous in its 
nature, coming from a soft coal which is burned here, and 
which is similar to the coal used by our blacksmiths. Dingy 
seems a little too strong a term ; but dirty is an emphatic 
lie. 

London is far ahead of New York in cleanliness ; and, 
were its buildings of the same cheerful hue as are those of 
New York, it would be called just what it is, — a marvellously 
clean city. 

Its streets are not altogether broad ,or straight ; but they 
are well paved. And yet that hardly gives you an idea of 
their excellent condition. But, when I say well paved, I 
mean, in this connection, that they are as smooth as a floor, 
as hard as marble, as free of ruts as the brow of Venus, and 
as clear of filth as is the character of an honest man. The 



22 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

system of sewerage is perfect, or, at least, it works to the 
satisfaction of everybody ; and that, I take it, is perfection, 
or a ver^ good substitute for it. 

In addition, they are well lighted. In the more important 
thoroughfares a line of lights extends through the middle of 
the street, with a stone-post-guarded enclosure about each 
lamp, — a sort of temporary city of refuge for the pedestrian 
who is fleeing before the impetuosity of the hurrying teams. 

And then there is a policeman at every important crossing, 
who stands among the crowding and struggling cabs, 'buses, 
and drays, like — like (I forget the god's name) among 
the driving elements, and brings order and females out of 
chaos with a despatch that is most commendable. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 2$ 



^ 



CHAPTER IV. 

RELATES ENTIRELY TO THE BEAUTY OF ENGLAND. 

THE glory of England is its country. A grander scene 
than an Engli^i landscape cannot be found from sun- 
rise to sunset. Its wonderful turf, which is everywhere, its 
fine variety of hill, plain, and dale, meadow, field, and forest, 
its broad white roads, its luxuriant foliage, its quaint, com- 
fortable farmhouses, and its nestling red brick villages, form- 
a picture, that, for loveliness, surpasses any effort of the 
imagination. 

The journey by rail from Liverpool to London is through 
an excellent country, and the traveller with any appreciation 
of nature and rustic art is charmed and delighted at every 
mile. 

The glory of such a scene no pen, unless it is mine, can 
adequately describe ;. and to pass through its beauties, only 
to be swindled in the end by a red-haired cabman, is one 
of the saddest episodes in this vale of tears. 

But the scenery of rural England is seen to the least 
advantage from a swift railway train. It is like looking into 
a beautiful kaleidoscope turned by a boy who thinks he 
hears a band in the street. Every impression is hardly set 
before it is obliterated by the next, and that immediately 
smothered by the succeeding, and so on. 

But from the roof of a stage-coach the panorama is un- 
rolled before the observer in all its loveliness, new beauties 



24 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

unfolding as the old are digested ; and the pure air of the 
heavens and the fragrance of the fields and woods minister 
to the body while the mind is being regaled. 

The railways have killed off the regular coach-lines, but 
have not rubbed out from the EngHsh mind the remem- 
brance of the comfort and pleasure they afforded ; and so, 
in the last few years, some of the gentry revived a coach-line 
from London into the rural districts, one of the points being 
Dorking, which Dickens made famous in "The Pickwick 
Papers." Here the " Marquis of Granby " still affords rest 
and refreshment for man and beast. 

These coaches, exact patterns of their deceased ances- 
tors, commence running on the first o/ May, and continue 
through the summer. 

To make the " illusion " the more perfect, they start from 
that old and famous coach starting-point in Piccadilly, the 
White Horse Cellar, and bring up at some equally aged and 
reputable hostelry in the terminal town. 

And so the first day of May was an active and animated 
day in Piccadilly. All the reverencers of the stage-coach 
(and they are many) , with scores of all classes, — admirers 
of that noble animal, the horse, — from the active newsboy 
up to the aristocratic member of the Four-in-Hand Club, 
assembled before the ancient White-Horse-Cellar inn a httle 
after nine o'clock that morning. The coaches were to start 
at ten, and the crowd were determined to be on hand in 
time. 

Of Piccadilly you and I have often read. In the pages 
of history and other kinds of fiction it has figured frequent- 
ly ; but what sort of a place it was I never knew. In my 
mind it was associated with a variety of occurrences, whose 
characteristics I expected were in some sort of way stamped 
upon it, and by which it might be recognized at a glance. 
I did expect, or rather had a vague impression, that a sight 
of the place would recall all the occurrences ever associated 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 2^ 

with it, and bring them out with a vividness the printed page 
was incapable of doing. Not Piccadilly in particular was to 
possess this virtue, but all the equally famous places. 

Piccadilly is a street, of course, a business street, with 
nothing but its name painted on the corners to indicate 
what it has been. This was a shock to me, and will be a 
shock to those familiar with London thoroughfares in con- 
nection with stirring and important events, but whose eyes 
have never rested upon their wondrous clean pavements, 
and rows of dingy houses and glaring shops. 

The White Horse Cellar (its modem name is Hatchett's 
Hotel) is four stories high (very low stories) ; is built of 
brick (dark, muddy-looking brick) ; has no architectural pre- 
tensions ; no swinging sign with a white horse prancing on 
three legs ; no broad archway with a vista of coaches, carts, 
and smock-frocks ; no fat landlord with a very red nose and 
a very bald head. The White Horse Cellar has none of 
these attractions. It is simply a dingy-faced building now ; 
but once it had all of these features, and was the pride and 
glory of a score of Tony Wellers. 

But never in its prime was the White Horse Cellar as busy 
and bustling and as cheerful as now. The sound of a horn 
is heard. The crowd sway from side to side ; and through 
the line thus formed, and up to the door of the happy old 
house, drove the Tunbridge-Wells coach, with its four fat 
and sleek steeds gorgeously harnessed, and adorned with 
flowers, while itself fairly shone with new paint and polished 
brasses. I knew everybody was excited : I knew it because I 
was a trifle inflamed myself. It seemed as if I could feel 
every hair on my head refuse to " sit down in front," while 
gallons of blood I knew nothing of heretofore rushed through 
my veins with a pressure that threatened to burst them. 

A thousand pictures of the happy coaching-days of old 
crowded my vision, until my head swam to such a degree 
that I feared I would drop down in a fit, and be bled by an 
expensive surgeon. 



26 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

But how excited everybody was ! and how loud they 
laughed ! It didn't seem as if they wanted to express any 
particular ideas, but simply to yell, and get rid of the press- 
ure. 

That's the way I felt ; and. that's the way they felt, — I 
know by their looks. Heaven bless them ! 

I could have cheerfully given anybody a half-sovereign to 
have stepped on my foot, that I might have screamed. 

But I rubbed my head for lack of other relief; and then 
felt of the horses and their harness, and peered into the 
coach, and up at the wide roomy seats on the roof; and 
then took hold of the wheels ; and finally got down on my 
hands and knees, and looked over the bright and running 
parts ; in which position I narrowly escaped being backed 
over by the coach itself, and losing some of my legs. 

Heavens, what an ecstasy it all was ! 

Then, the passengers who had booked the places having 
taken their seats, the whip, a fine gentleman in tight-fitting 
drab clothes, gathered up the reins, the boots gave a flour- 
ish with the horn, the people shouted (you ought to have 
heard my yell; but perhaps you did), and the stage and 
its grand horses shot down the street ; and the crowd closed 
around the new-comer, the Windsor coach, which, similarly 
equipped, and loading rapidly, also sounded its horn, and 
bore away for Windsor Castle and its famous neighborhood. 
These are the ten-o'clock coaches. 

An hour passes, and first of the coaches fixed for this 
time is the Guilford, which is greeted with a cheer as it 
swings up to the door, and its splendid team champ their 
bits, and toss their proud heads. 

I was going on the Guilford, — going do\yn into old Surrey 
on a three-hours' stretch, with a fine English dinner at the 
end, and a glorious return-drive after a reviving smoke. I 
put my thumbs into the arm-holes of my vest, and allowed 
my chest to bulge somewhat. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 2/ 

Any impartial beholder could have told at a glance that I 
was either going on that coach, or owned it. 

I had booked an outside place, the first seat back of the 
box, and in easy punching distance of the driver. I could 
almost hear my legs tremble as I climbed up to it. 

I had hardly got settled, and was only half way through a 
triumphant glance over the crowd, when the cloths were re- 
moved from the backs of the impatient steeds. Col. Dick- 
son gathered up the reins with deliberate ease, neither seeing 
the people, nor realizing {apparently') that they were trying 
to perforate him with their eyes, and ingulf him within their 
extended mouths. The boots, sparkHng with flat brass 
buttons, sounded the bugle most cheerily, the word was 
given, and we were away. 

Down Piccadilly we went at a sharp gait ; the leaders, with 
their cocked ears and arched necks, running straight ahead 
to edify the people ; while the heavier wheel-horses brought 
along the coach. Through the crowd at the Wellington Statue, 
and into Knightsbridge, we moved along at an exhilarating 
gait, the people stopping on the walk to admire the gay 
turnout and the intelHgent appearance of the passengers. 
Down Brompton Road, and amid its full tide of vehicles, we 
bowled along without the least abatement of our speed, the 
horn of the boots clearing the way before us as effectually 
as if it had been a simoon loaded with vitriol. And so on, 
on, on, into Fulham Road, by gaping butchers, and admiring 
bakers, and envious grocers ; the lethargic donkey-carts and 
gruff 'buses, and insolent cabs, and aristocratic drags, taking 
the side of the road with alacrity, while we passed through 
at a sparkling trot, and held on to the rail to keep our 
breath and senses. 

By shops and homes, and terraces and garden-walls, and 
screaming children and smiling parents, we bowled along at 
the same exhilarating trot ; the clicking of tlie animals' hoofs 
on the smooth flint road making a music that filled our souls 
with delight, and our blood with needles. 



28 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

And so on over Putney Bridge, widi the lazy Thames 
rolling beneath, up the hill of Putney High Street, with its 
pretty cottages and terraced wilderness of flowers, and so 
out into the country, — the broad, open country of rustic 
England. 

And still there is no halting in the lively gait of the gallant 
beasts ; no break in the steady, even click of their iron hoof 
on the hard flint. 

We are out of the crowded thoroughfares now, and be- 
yond the supervision of the city's vigilant street commis- 
sioners : but the road is still broad and white, and hard and 
smooth ; and, wherever it may lead, — over common or 
across heath, up hill or down dale, by field or by park, — it 
will still be broad and white, and hard and smooth. 

What a wonderful road is the English highway, to be sure ! 
what astonishing prodigality of ground in the midst of an 
over-crowded territory ! Why, all America, with its thousands 
of square miles of idle land, cannot boast of an artery like 
this ; nor, with all its capital and labor, has it yet succeeded 
in keeping a highway in such perfect order. 

How broad and smooth it is as it stretches before us ! how 
even and green is its turf, its marvellous turf, that belts each 
side of the carriage-way, whose white line cuts through its 
shining green as straight and sharp as ever the gravelly way 
cut through the turf of a model garden ! In all the space of 
its flinty surface, from London down to Guilford town, there 
is not a rut sufficiently large to hold the purse of Lazarus. 

We are running across Wimbledon Common now, where 
her Majesty's troops make a pleasure-day for other people 
by making an uncomfortable one for themselves, and where 
there is the line of an ancient intrenchment dating away 
back in the unhealthy fog of the Roman age. 

Wimbledon Common is wild grass, gravel-pits, and yellow 
blossoming furze, where sheep and bad boys gambol away 
the precious time. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 29 

Putney Heath near to has many features in common, 
excepting that it is heavily dotted with sombre firs instead 
of bihous furze. 

How clear and beautiful the air is out here in the country ! 
We left the smoky and hazy atmosphere when we left the 
pavement; and now the sky is blue again, and the air is 
laden with the odor of lilac, hedge, and meadow-land. 

Down into old Kingston, and through its ancient market- 
square, with the carts and people standing and looking as 
they did centuries ago, undoubtedly, we rattled along, — 
the bugle's lusty strains clearing the street, and filling the 
windows, — and drawing rein at the venerable hostlery of the 
Horn and Bell, in whose archway stood the smiling hostler 
and the change of horses, the passengers descended, and 
stretched their legs, while a fresh team were put in, and the 
jaded beasts trotted up the paved way to the stables. 

I gazed hungrily at the Horn and Bell. This was some- 
thing like I had read of, but not quite ; although I imagined 
I detected in the loungers who were now helping to put 
in the horses an excellent counterfeit of the loungers who 
moved to a similar service a hundred years ago. 

But we were off again in a moment, and the choking 
hoofs and musical bugle sounded as before. 

On the right of us lay the Thames ; beyond, the trees of 
Hampton Court (that former residence of royalty), and the 
Park of Bushy, with its wonderful array of chestnut-trees : 
on the left were the old street-front, its gentry homes, paved 
lanes and courts, and staring people. 

Out again into the country we flew, by a gentleman's park, 
ivy-covered cottage, lodge, and country church. We dipped 
down into dells, and rose gradual hills, and sped across level 
ground, with noble trees, and velvety turf, and finely-trimmed 
hedges, on both sides of us. We passed the plodding don- 
key-cart and heavily-wheeled farmer-wagon, and the spruce 
carriage of the land-owner, taking a brief glance at each, 



30 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

but looking most at the grand scenery and the little quaint 
houses, with their tiny panes of glass, their red-tile and gray- 
moss roofs, their green-embowered porches, and paling- 
enclosed gardens ; and here and there a long, rambling inn, 
of white wrinkled walls, and bowing roof, with lattice win- 
dows, and paved court, and thatched stables, and an array 
of pewter mugs, whose bright polished sides were dazzHng in 
the sun's rays. 

On to Cobham we rushed, and up to the front of its hos- 
tlery, gray with age, and with the moss of centuries clinging 
to its walls ; and here we changed horses again, and smiled 
agreeably down into the round eyes of the villagers ; and 
then we were off again, across Cobham Common, Whistley 
Heath, by cottage and mansion, park and farm, hedge and 
brick wall, to Ripley. 

The moment we struck the paved high street of this ven- 
erable place, it seemed as if an instantaneous and radical 
transformation had taken place, and we were put back to 
the sixteenth century, with the bustle and hurry and new- 
fangledness of the nineteenth century but the memory of an 
ill-starred dream. 

Years and years ago the old inn before which we are now 
changing horses was famous as a coaching-place. As gayly 
as trot the new relief through the cobbled way to-day, so 
trotted horses that have passed to ashes long ago ; and as 
proudly as step the hostlers to the pole this day, so passed 
the hosders whose bones have been so long crumbled into 
nothing, that no living person remembers the time. 

There is no change to its walls or its roof, or its halls or 
passage-ways, and perhaps none in the low-ceihng tap-room, 
whose burnished pewter mugs may have shone as brightly in 
the eyes of the wearers of knee-breeches and doublets as 
they do now in the eyes of the rustic owners of smock- 
frocks, corduroy breeches, and hobnailed shoes, whom we 
see about us. What a rambling old structure it is ! what a 



ENGLAND FROM- A BACK-WINDOW. 3 1 

monstrous high roof! what curious gables and quaint win- 
dows ! what a capacious stable-yard, whose coarse pavement 
is flecked with moss, and fringed with grass ! what low door- 
ways ! what curious nooks and crannies are visible every- 
where ! 

Can it be possible that London, with nearly four millions 
of active and energetic people, is within twenty miles of all 
this mildew? 

We rattled out of Ripley as gayly as out of Piccadilly ; and 
in a moment the quaint, antique, low-browed, white walled 
houses were out of sight, and in another moment we were 
again engrossed in admiration of lawn, hedges, red-brick 
gables, parks, and bright fields of an English landscape. 

We fairly thundered down High Street in old Guilford, 
just as we have read of royalty and highwaymen thundering 
into the ancient place. I don't know that the pavement is 
any different from that of other English towns : but I ex- 
pected a noise as we came in at the head of the street, and 
I got it ; we were almost deafened. 

We went down at a spanking gait, however ; and the bugle 
sounded as merrily as ever a bugle could sound on a May- 
day. The owners of the shops, and the pedestrians on the 
walk, stopped to watch us. The dress of the people was the 
only difference between this and the arrival of a coach on 
any week-day in the dim past. Here were the heavy pave- 
ments, the odd shop-windows, the projecting upper floors, 
the lattices, the pointed roofs of tile, of two hundred years 
ago. The sun had changed more in that time than the 
scene it was now shining upon. 

I was so full of olden memories, and appreciation and 
enjoyment, that it seemed as if I should split open, and per- 
manently cripple innocent people. 

We drove up to the White Fawn, where we were to have 
dinner ; and, diving through the eager crowd of good Guil- 
ford citizens who gathered to look at the London coach, we 



32 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

were met by a waiter, and escorted up a broad, crooked 
staircase, and through a musty passage, to a wainscoted bed- 
room, where we made a hasty toilet. 

After that we had a grand dinner before a fireplace wide 
enough and high enough for an American hotel clerk to 
warm himself by. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 33 



CHAPTER V. 

GIVES MORE DETAILS OF LONDON. 

WHAT is here called " the city," and what was origi- 
nally London, is a very small space in the city of 
to-day. From what I had read of it, I judged it lay in the 
very geographical heart of the metropolis, and was very 
difficult of access. My sole fear in coming here was that I 
might get to a hotel in " the city," and rarely see the outside ; 
or be lodged outside, and never see "the city." 

The city is now thoroughly devoted to business purposes ; 
that is, banks and cigar-stores. It is down by the river, 
the damp Broadway of London, and is to this metropolis 
what the City-hall and Wall-street neighborhood is to New 
York, — a section of ill-defined and invisible limits. The 
tourist who has but two or three days in London should get a 
hotel as near to the city as possible ; about Charing Cross, 
for instance. 

There are many places in London with which the general 
reader is acquainted, but which he never saw. It is natural 
that we should form in our own mind an idea of the geo- 
graphical and architectural features of the places and scenes 
and incidents we read about. The impressions are instan- 
taneous, but vivid, and last through all time, unless we are 
so fortunate or unfortunate as to see with the physical eye 
that they are incorrect, which they rarely fail to be. 

What was called a road when it really was a road through 



34 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

open country several hundred years ago retains its name, 
although its nature is completely transformed. The same of 
the lanes. 

When St. Martin's Church was built, the location was in 
the open country between the cities of London and West- 
minster, and it was called St. Martin-in-the-Fields. It is so 
called now, although hemmed in by crowded streets, with 
the fields and daisies miles away. 

St. Giles-in-the-Fields is another well-preserved misnomer. 
It rears its dingy and smoky front in the somewhat doubtful 
and oppressive neighborhood of the Seven Dials. 

The hills are not quite as ambiguous as the fields and 
lanes ; but Holborn and Ludgate Hills — both familiar names 
to the reader, and now crowded thoroughfares — are so 
vague as to require the aid of a policeman to find their as- 
cent. 

The lanes and streets are more intricate than the monthly 
statement of the United-States Treasury. Owing to London 
being a combination of many parishes, boroughs, and towns, 
the names which they individually applied to their streets 
are, in many instances, duplicated ; and the conservative ten- 
dency of the EngKsh has led them to retain them, rather 
than make the change which the case actually demands. 
Consequently, we have several High Streets, several Broad 
Streets, and several of many other names, scattered over the 
city, and causing the stranger to carry on like a pirate. The 
confusion is further enhanced by streets with several names 
to each, and by the process of numbering the houses, which 
is the most hilarious abandonment of system ever witnessed. 

A street will begin with one name, drop suddenly into 
another, flop abruptly into a third, and turn completely over 
into a fourth, and so on. 

There is the Strand, for instance. From Charing Cross 
to Temple Bar it is the Strand ; beyond the Bar it is Fleet 
Street; then it becomes Ludgate Hill; then St. Paul's 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 35 

Churchyard (cheerful name for a street) ; then Cannon 
Street ; then Eastcheap (whatever that means) ; and finally 
Great Tower Street, where its checkered career, like that 
of many a human being, is ended by the Tower of Lon- 
don. This is the one bright ray in the dark history of that 
structure. 

But, in the numbering of its houses, Londoners have 
achieved the greatest success. You will frequently find the 
first and last number on a street directly opposite each other. 
This apparent impossibility is easily performed by number- 
ing first on one side of the street, and then back on the other 
side. Let us suppose a case. You want No. 840 on Great 
Christopher Street. You find one end of that avenue, look 
up at the number of the first house, and learn (as you are 
sure to do nine hundred and ninety-nine times in every 
thousand searches for the highest number) that it is the 
first number, — No. i. " Thunder and lightning ! " you ex- 
claim, and at once put up the street at a lively gait, looking 
neither to the right nor left, but keeping straight ahead, and 
thinking only of the fact that you have to pass four hundred 
and twenty houses before reaching your number. 

By the time you have gone nearly that distance you are 
suddenly confronted by a wall of building ahead, and flatter 
yourself that the journey is at an end. You look up to 
the nearest door, with the expectation that you are 700 
and something, and are amazed to see that you are barely 
half that, with but a few houses ahead of you. You hurry 
on with bated breath, searching every door with hysterical 
eagerness, only to find the expectation of some unravelling 
of the hideous riddle a baseless fabric. You reach the last 
house on that side : it is 420. You look across to the oppo- 
site door.: it is 421. To the next: it is 422. You call a 
policeman, and tell him your trouble. He explains that the 
number, judging from surroundings, must be at the lower 
end of the street; and his information is not exactly like the 



36 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

trickling of crystal waters over mossy rocks, but it is knowl- 
edge, and knowledge is power ; and you knock your head 
against a post, and pick up your weary and perspiring legs, 
and start on again. When you stand before 840, and find 
that it is exactly opposite No. i, the language with which 
you clothe your ideas fits better than -it looks. 

London overflows with courts that seem to commence 
nowhere, and end somewhere near there. 

Many of them are so narrow, that people leaning from the 
opposite windows can clasp hands. It takes a pretty good 
reach ; but the inhabitants of those places are good on the 
reach. 

There are lanes, with a roadway just wide enough to ac- 
commodate one wagon, with bustling business-places lining 
each side of the way. These quaint thoroughfares have 
been in existence for centuries ; but the pavements are as 
clean as the day they were laid down. . 

Londoners, hke all the rest of the English, are fond of 
titles. If they can't make a display on the front-doors, they 
do on their envelopes. How many times I have pondered 
over their complicated addresses, and wondered if the com- 
ing man would understand them ! 

We have James Jones, 16 Blood Street, North Court, 
Pineover Square, Great Mercer Road, E.G. (East Gentral 
District), London. 

It is well to mention North Gourt, as there may be other 
Blood Streets in the city ; and they speak of Pineover Square 
to show that the special North Gourt in question is not any 
other of the North Gourts. Great Mercer Road is thus men- 
tioned to protect Pineover Square from being confounded 
with the Pineover Square elsewhere ; and the whole is 
clinched by E.G. beyond all possibihty of loss in the mazes 
of W.G., S.E.G., &c. 

Among other things the stranger notices is the substan- 
tiality of every thing but the breakfasts at the boarding- 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 3/ 

houses. The Enghshman is not ostentatious to a degree 
that is offensive in the matter of adornment; but he is 
solid and substantial in whatever he builds. This is first 
evident in the carriages, cabs, and drays which throng the 
streets and parks ; unless you are in a crowd, when the first 
indication of his great body and weight is indicated in his 
hobnailed shoes. I don't mean to say that every English- 
man wears hobnailed shoes ; but enough of them do to 
satisfy and convince you. 

There are no spider-webbed carriage-wheels here, no 
gaudy coloring of the boxes, no wafer springs. Every thing 
is stanch, plain but rich, and awful solid. 

I would as soon think of being run over by a steam-roller 
as by one of their one-horse carriages. There are no bug- 
gies, no Brainards, no phaetons, no coal-boxes, but dog- 
carts, drags, and coaches. 

Some Englishmen cannot afford a whole horse : so they do 
with a pony instead. The wandering and reflective tourist 
is surprised by the abundance of little ponies which he meets 
hitched up to carts three times as big as themselves, and 
drawing around people who will probably die of dropsy. 

Once in a while you come across something familiar : the 
one thing in particular is the placarding of dead walls with 
advertisements. One of my objects in coming to Europe 
was to get rid of such defamation ; but here it is carried on 
with all the vehemence a depraved nature is capable of. In 
this connection it strikes me rather oddly, that while the ad- 
vertisements in the daily papers are crowded into small space 
and solid type, like the dreary array of sheriff notices in a 
territorial paper, those in many of the weeklies are displayed 
to a degree that is absurd, especially on the titlepage. 

The name of Tom Hood's paper is " Fun ; " but, to an 
unimpassioned observer, it looks very much like " Eppes' 
Cocoa." 

Men dressed in grotesque rigging of an advertising nature 



38 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

are not allowed here to scare horses, and offend fastidious 
tastes like mine ; but you can see numbers of them parading 
up and down, with announcement-boards carried in front. 
They are not allowed on the walks, however, but must con- 
fine their stroll to the gutters. They are paid fourteen-pence 
per die?n, and rarely lose a day tlirough dyspepsia. 

There are occasionally buildings to let here, of course. 
It is not wholly a land of antiquity and hoary frost ; there is 
changing about, I am sorry to say. 

Moving about town, you come across announcements of 
rent, leading off in this mild and humble manner : " These 
commanding premises," "This most noble mansion," "Tliis 
majestic comer," "These lovely floors," &c. 

Also there are occasionally new buildings, — the most of 
them going up on the old plan, just as their forefathers would 
have done it. When you see a new stone building (when 
you do, remember), you see something that involuntarily 
moves you to tears. The stone is of a streaked, yellowish- 
brown tint, — such a tint as rusting and weeping iron imparts 
to marble ; and, to a stranger who has a guide-book in every 
pocket, it is a spectacle that sends the hot blood flying to 
his head, and makes every nerve tingle. It looks like a 
building dug out of an ancient peat-bed; and how often 
have I seen new Americans leaning up against them and 
crying, and the policemen husthng them away ! 

There is plenty of weather in London, but no stoves. 
The absence of stove-stores is so conspicuous, no one from 
America can help noticing it. I spoke to an Englishman 
about it, and volunteered to mingle my tears with his ; but 
he said, — 

" No stove-shops ? Oh, my, yes ! Plenty of them ; plenty 
of them. Oh, oh, oh, my ! — oh, my, yes ! Plenty of them ; 
plenty of them. Oh, yes, indeed ! " 

That's the way an Englishman talks, especially if he is 
an Englishwoman. He is very fond of interjections, and 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 39 

always gives a rising inflection to the last word of the 
sentence. The representative Englishman is an altogether 
different-looking person from the representative American ; 
but the masses of both sides would blend well in features 
and dress. But no amount of study and practice will enable 
an American to talk like an Englishman. There is where an 
Englishman has the advantage of us, thank Heaven ! 

But I have seen no stove-stores, nevertheless. At the 
International Exhibition, in a department devoted with a 
flourish to stoves, I found two sickly specimens of cook- 
stoves, but any number of towering ranges and gorgeous 
fireplaces. Every room in the London house is provided 
with a fireplace ; also with a hollow sheet-iron guard or fen- 
der in the front ; also with a pair of ponderous tongs, a long 
poker, and a long-handled shovel. The last three articles 
stand up at the sides of the place. I am very particular in 
mentioning this fact, as it has made a deep impression upon 
me. A g'tove is bad enough to manage, especially when 
there is an obstinate clinker in the grate, and you have got 
on a pair of tight pants ; but I think a pair of long-legged 
tongs, with poker and shovel to match, are calculated to 
drive a man farther into insanity than a stove. 

I am quite confident I never approach the fireplace with- 
out knocking down all of these articles. Perhaps it is the 
poker first, and that trips up the shovel ; and, in trying to save 
them, I become entangled in the tongs, and down they come 
on the sheet-iron surface of the hollow fender, making a crash 
that is exasperating beyond all power of description. 

The entertainment is beginning to pall on the taste. 

The English mind is strongly consei-vative, and does not 
take kindly to change, unless it is small change. The young- 
sters are conspicuous for jackets, broad linen collars, and 
high hats, just as the youngsters of America were similarly 
conspicuous twenty-five years ago, and even beyond that 
time, without doubt. The men dress pretty much as we do, 



40 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

with the exception of the head-gear. They wear but two 
kinds of hats, — the stiff round crown, and the high hat, or 
" silky." The great variety of soft hats are not known here. 
In fact, I have seen but one soft hat since I came to London 
outside the shop-windows, and but very few there. The 
"silky " is almost exclusively worn by the better classes and 
cabmen, and the round crown by the others. There are 
no caps to speak of. The gentlemen dress in good taste ; 
but the ladies — 

Would to Heaven some other pen would make known 
the humiliating fact, that, in taste in dress, the English woman 
is far behind her American sister ! 

Many of the garments worn by the English ladies were 
the American style a year ago : and I contend most earnestly 
that a seal-skin cloak with a linen dress, or heavy muff and 
victorine with a summer silk, are not the acme of good 
taste ; and yet I have frequently seen these combinations 
on the fashionable streets and promenades. 

Some of the ladies who occupy the Hyde-park carriages, 
with liveried coachman and footman on the box, are actually 
dowdyish in their appearance. 

The English woman is not as handsome as the American 
woman. But I do not know as she claims to be. More 
handsome women can be seen in one evening on Main 
Street in Danbury than in an entire afternoon on fashionable 
Regent Street in London. 

I venture to say you will see ten " country-looking " belles 
in, the boxes of a first-class London theatre, where you will 
find one in the boxes of a theatre in any American city of 
fifteen thousand population. 

The pictures of women to be found in the English illus- 
trated papers give, you will remember, an expression of lan- 
guid refinement that I have often admired, and which is so 
uniform in the prints, that I knew I should recognize an 
English woman the moment I saw her. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 4 1 

No one can imagine how grieved I am to record the fact, 
that the expression of the illustrated woman is a rare excep- 
tion : the .finest-looking women are to be found among the 
poorer classes. But, of the two, the English woman is far 
the healthier. Her red cheeks are the gift of nature : they 
are not store cheeks. And it is not a dead color, like that of 
the buildings, but a clear, deep color. It is not confined to 
any one particular class ; but it is the common heritage of 
all. I can never forget those red cheeks: I shall never 

want to. 

The London policeman attracts the attention of the tour- 
ist at once. He is dressed in a blue uniform, as are ours ; 
but he is rendered noticeable by a stiff wool body helmet, 
which he wears in place of a cap or Panama hat. We may 
laugh at the " rigging ; " but we must respect the efficiency of 
the force. But few crimes are committed here, as the lean 
police-records affirm ; and an execution a year is the aver- 
age. P.S. — ^The emotional insanity dodge is not practised ; 
and they convict, do those English juries, where there is a 
living chance. 

There are two other uniformed classes which attract the 
eye. One is the ever-busy shoeblack, in red shirt and band- 
ed cap, who has always one hand pointed reproachfully at 
your soiled shoes, and the other apphed respectfully to his 
cap. They are an organization of their own; and each 
member has his stand, and pays for it according to its im- 
portance. The charge for blacking a pair of shoes (no one 
wears boots here) is one penny, or two cents in our money. 

I learned these facts from one of the band, whom I in- 
undated with a couple of pennies for the information. He 
winked to himself on the receipt. He probably thought I 
was a second Peabody dropped down upon London by a 
beneficent Providence. 

The' other uniformed class is the soldiery. With their red 
coats, and paper-collar box caps resting on one ear, straight 



42 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

backs, retiring shoulders, and jaunty cane, necessarily make 
them conspicuous on all the thoroughfares. Their straight 
spines are abominable ; and the elaborate parting of their 
back hair^ and swagger, are an offence in the eyes of the 
wayfarer. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 43 



CHAPTER VI. 

GIVES AN OFF-HAND VIEW OF PARLIAMENT. 

A FEW days ago I made application to a member of 
the House of Commons for permission to witness a 
session. 

I received a prompt answer, requesting me to be in waiting 
in St. Stephen's lobby at five o'clock that afternoon, where the 
writer would meet me, and " put me through." He didn't 
use that phrase exactly ; but that was the substance of his 
note. Knowing it would not do to trifle with the time of a 
member of so illustrious a body, I was on hand promptly to 
the hour, in the central hall, so called, where two policemen 
guarded the hallway to the House. I explained my errand 
to one of the officers, and was told I would have to wait 
there until the member came out, as the House was already 
in session. 

I found others in waiting, and new faces constantly arriv- 
ing. Some effected an immediate entrance ; others were 
interviewed briefly by members with whom they had made 
engagements ; and the rest wandered around as I did, and 
felt of the mouldings. 

Sir Charles Dilke, the member to whose courtesy I am 
indebted for the view of the House in session, would be, 
when he got around, the first knight I had seen. I am not 
much used to titled personages, my knowledge of them 
being obtained entirely through prints. 



44 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

With the imagination thus left to itself, and being blessed 
with an imagination that never knew a day's sickness, I very 
naturally constructed a party worth seeing. 

Common sense teaches us all that a member of the nobiU- 
ty is but a lump of human clay fashioned on models com- 
mon to our seeing ; but, unconsciously ignoring the teachings 
aforesaid, we find our mind imbued with a being who shows 
traces of nobility in his very step and bearing, whom no 
density of human crowd could hide from our vision. 

Am I exaggerating this mentaJ weakness? Let us see. 
Can you conceive of a bow-legged duke? Or is it pos- 
sible for you to locate a pimple on the nose of a viscount ? 
And no one, however diseased his imagination, ever pic- 
tured a baron with an ulcerated leg, or conceived of such a 
monstrous impossibility as a cross-eyed duchess. 

No, my dear reader, the imperfections of the masses have 
never been associated with the titled ; and, however radically 
practical are the teachings of common sense, the ignorant 
fervor of the imagination has made the deeper impression. 

And so I was very soon to see a knight. 

I was pencilling my name and address, with other infor- 
mation, on the calf of George the Third's leg, when one of the 
pohcemen shouted the name of Sir Charles Dilke. " Now," 
thought I, " he will come when he hears that." The police- 
man shouted again. I looked at him very attentively, won- 
dering where he thought Sir Charles was, — on the roof, or 
in the crypt. Again he screamed. Then his eyes suddenly 
lighted on me, and an immediate change came upon his face. 

"Oh! there you are, are you?" he inquired with some 
disgust. " Why didn't you answer when I shouted ? 

"My name ain't Dilke," I indignantly protested. "My 
name is " — 

But I was cut short by a well-built gentleman of apparently 
thirty-five years, with a pleasant expression of countenance, 
who advanced and made himself known, and asked me to 
follow him. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 45 

And I followed him by the policeman, and along the hall. 
This was Sir Charles, a bona fide knight ; and I examined 
his appearance with engrossing interest. 

He was a well-built man, as I have said, but ordinary 
appearing. He might have been a rural lawyer or school- 
teacher ; but he was a .knight. And all the while he was 
going ahead, and all the while I was following after, I tried 
to clothe him with a lance and shield and helmet, and fell 
back from the task exhausted. 

In the lobby he bade me good-by, and went back into 
the House ; and I climbed up the stairs, and came out into 
the galleries, and took my first look at the House of Com- 
mons in session. 

It was not, to first appearance, a large apartment. There 
were galleries at the side, and one at each end. That over 
the speaker's chair was devoted to shaggy-headed and bald- 
headed men called reporters. The opposite end-gallery was 
devoted to the quiet and patient sight-seers. 

The first glance showed me that the entire place was of 
polished oak, which gave it a sombre appearance. Then I 
looked down upon the commoners. They sat in pew-seats, 
arranged like gallery-seats, in tiers one above the other, from 
the middle aisle to the wall, on each side. In a heavy oaken 
box with gorgeous roof, at the upper end of the aisle, sat the 
speaker, in a fainting condition, apparently, from the enor- 
mous wig of wool on his head. In front of him, in the aisle, 
sat three men in gowns and wigs. In front, to the right of 
him, sat the conservatives, tiered up there in gloomy array. 
Opposite them were the fiery radicals, similarly tiered. Each 
man, when occasion requires, can rest himself by bracing 
his knees against the back of the seat in front, — all but the 
occupants of the front or lowest seats, who have nothing in 
front of them. 

The atmosphere below us was smoky ; and through the 
hazy canopy appeared the statesmen of educated and 



46 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

aristocratic England, with uncovered heads and crossed 
legs. 

The smoke, the lounging and careless attitudes of the 
members, — wearing their hats, and carrying, in a great many 
instances, their hands in their pockets, — reminded me so 
forcibly of a Western hotel bar-room, that for an instant I 
was benumbed, and could merely stare down upon the 
astounding spectacle, without the faintest attempt to under- 
stand it. 

A conservative was spe'aking upon a bill for regulating 
registration of deaths. He had a poor voice, a faulty pro- 
nunciation, and spoke so low, that only an occasional word 
could be understood in the gallery. I watched the reporters, 
equally distant from him, and having no earthly interest in 
the subject, and wondered what sort of a report they would 
make of his speech ; but they scribbled on as uninterrupt- 
edly as though they heard what he was saying. 

The speaker continued to sink down into the capacious 
folds of his chair, until he threatened to disappear entirely. 
Some of the members shoved their hands to the full depth 
of their trousers' pockets, and, with hat-brims drawn down 
over their eyes, fell to thinking upon the condition of the 
country. Others simply crossed their legs, and picked their 
teeth meditatively. 

Only one man listened. He was a radical, and occupied 
the front-seat. His attention was explained when the conser- 
vative occupying the floor sat down. Then he commenced, 
talking rapidly, and reading harrowing statistics. 

Several times during his occupancy of the floor some one 
among the radicals distinctly said, " Hear, hear." 

There were other speakers. The light grew dimmer. 
"Aren't they going to light the gas?" asked my companion. 
I said nothing : I always do say nothing on such occasions. 
I think it looks profound. 

Now there was a radical talking. He was a slim man. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 4/ 

with hair frosted with age, and a very nervous face and quick 
voice. The moment he rose, various groanings — Uke shouts 
from a deep sewer, or the rumbhng of a heavy vehicle 
over a distant bridge — ascended from the conservatives. 
It was a protest against his taking the time ; a sort of stoi- 
cal, wooden opposition, as if the makers of it were doing it 
by the day. Not the least change of position, not the least 
show of animation, was visible where this rumbhng ascended. 
The radicals as stoically preserved their lounging as if the 
success or failure of their fellow was of no moment to them ; 
and both acted as if the entire debate was a dreary farce, of 
which they long ago had tired. 

When I first looked at the pews, and saw that the repre- 
sentatives of a great nation had no desk to put their feet 
upon, and spit under, I was sorry for them ; but I am not 
now. 

This keeping on of hats in the House of Commons was 
a greater shock to me than it ought to have been, with my 
experience of the English in assemblage. 

The English, represented as being burly, suspicious, reti- 
cent, and stiff, are, on the contrary, a most polite people. 
I don't know as they are particularly cordial with strangers, 
and I cannot say that there are not Englishmen who are all 
that is above complained ; but as a people they are emphati- 
cally polite. As a stranger in London, I have had occasion 
to make many inquiries, and, without a single exception, have 
received obliging answers. It is an Englishman's habit to 
look a trifle dissatisfied if he cannot give you the desired 
information. * 

All the tradespeople invariably say "Thank you," however 
trifling may be your purchase, or however hurried they may 
be ; and quite frequently they say something pleasant about 
the weather. And one has only to see this London weather 
to understand how difficult it must be to say any thing pleas- 
ant about it. 



48 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

But the Englishman won't take off his hat where he can 
possibly avoid it. You will see him with it on in the theatre, 
public galleries, or elsewhere indoors, except at church. 
To an American, who instinctively takes off his hat in the 
presence of ladies, the spectacle of gentlemen seated with 
women, with their hats on, is a disagreeable sensation. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 49 



CHAPTER VII. '^ 



AN ENGLISH MOB. 

HAVING now seen the Englishman in his more ele- 
vated phase, I desired to look upon him in a crowd ; 
and the opportunity was presented in the reception by the 
city of the Czar of all the Russias. 

I had heard so much of the English mob, and of its 
aggressive and offensive nature, that, while I determined to 
avail myself to the utmost to see all that could be seen, I 
also determined to be cautious of my person. 

The line of march for the illustrious guest and his distin- 
guislied company was from Buckingham Palace, through 
Charing Cross, and through the Strand, Fleet Street, Lud- 
gate Hill, Cannon Street, to Guild Hall, — the ancient City 
Hall of London. 

If you and I were going to see the lord-mayor, we would 
proceed there in a cab or omnibus, get him down to the 
door, and tell him we were glad to see him, leaving him to 
embellish the proceedings as he saw fit. 

But in this case the visit was a topic of enlivening con- 
versation for a week before ; and the preparation for the mile 
or so visit was as ostentatious as if the lord-mayor was on 
top of a pinnacle in the heart of Africa. 

Royalty has its drawbacks. 

Several days before the contemplated parade, many of the 
shop-windows on streets indicated in the line of march con- 



50 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

tained announcements of seats and windows to be let for 
viewing the procession. I say, many of the shops : I ought 
to have said, nearly all of them. 

And not only the shop-windows, stripped of their gor- 
geous display, were to be for that day devoted to seeing 
the sights, as if in exchange for the months they had sub- 
mitted to being the sights, but windows above were also 
placarded for the market. 

Sunday being the day before, Saturday was devoted to 
preparing places for the flags and banners, and seats at the 
upper windows. 

Monday morning at daylight I strolled the whole length 
of the route. In the Strand, with the street otherwise de- 
serted, I found men sawing and hammering. Wherever 
available, a platform was erected and rented. Even church- 
yard gates were placarded with the price of admittance to 
their sacred precincts " for viewing the royal procession." 

The shop-windows, which on Saturday night bristled with 
gold, precious stones, and the costly products of Eastern 
looms, were now stripped of their adornings ; and impromptu*^ 
benches, disguised with green or red paper, were taking their 
places, giving the thoughtful Englishman an idea of the feel- 
ings of hk forefathers when Cromwell usurped the royal 
Stuarts. 

In our country a holiday is made the occasion of extra 
attention to the show-windows of the places of business 
along the route of the procession ; but here it was the re- 
verse. And yet both have the same object, — gain. None 
of the business-men of the Strand and Fleet Street appeared 
to be too high-toned to rent his window for the accommo- 
dation of Tom, Dick, and Harry. 

What astonishment I may have felt at this singular taste 
in the better class of shopkeepers and business-men was 
dissipated on inquiring the price of the sittings. 

Front-seats in some of the windows were valued at two 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 5 1 

guineas a head, or, at the present valuation of gold in the 
United States, nearly twelve dollars. If a man had a wife 
and four children, he might monopolize the entire front of 
the window during the passing of the procession for the 
trifling sum of seventy dollars. In some places the seats 
were four deep, the price lessening as the rear was gained. 
The lowest price for a front-seat in a shop-window was one 
pound (five dollars). In the upper windows the price 
graded with the floor, — ranging from ten shillings to one 
pound for the first floor, six shillings to fifteen shillings for 
the second floor, and five shillings to ten shillings for the 
third floor. 

I didn't inquire any higher than the third. The farther 
a newspaper man goes in that direction, the less he feels at 
home. 

At nine o'clock the people commenced to throng the 
streets through which royalty was to pass. 

Fleet Street was almost dazzling with suspended banners 
and flags. There were several American flags. One of 
them was graced with fifteen very apoplectic-looking stars ; 
another, as if frightened by the obesity of the other's con- 
stellation, appeared without any stars at all, the space in- 
tended for that portion of cotton astronomy being as blue 
and blank as the face of a defeated candidate. 

At eleven o'clock the roadways were covered with gravel, 
the sidewalks were packed with people, all public vehicles 
were ordered from the route, and the side-streets sparkled 
with roving minstrels, gymnasts. Punch and Judys, and brass 
bands. 

At twelve o'clock the crowd had most visibly increased. 
As far as the eye could see, on either side, were the dark 
masses of humanity, almost still now, for the jam was too 
great to permit of motion ; and the specks floating to and 
fro up and down the roadway were gathered into the great 
lump by the efficient police, and the yellow gravelled way 
shone clear and bright in the sun. 



52 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

To an American, used to a hot, blustering, and bewildered 
police, and a hungry, struggling, and offensive " independ- 
ent " crowd, this throng of intelligent-looking people, stand- 
ing quietly where they happened to be, and waiting patiently 
for the time and the procession to pass, the sight was a novel 
one ; need I add, most grateful ? 

At half-past twelve the advance-guard of the procession 
appeared, — mounted cuirassiers, with shining steel breast- 
plates and helmets, and dancing plumes, mounted on power- 
ful horses, and swinging along at a sharp pace. 

Next to them came several carriages, with coachmen and 
footmen clothed in cocked hats, and fairly smothered with 
gold lace. But they were covered carriages ; and the occu- 
pants, ladies-in-waiting at court, were but imperfectly seen. 

Next came dashing along another body of mounted sol- 
diery ; and rolling rapidly along after them were the royal 
carriages, open, and the occupants in full view. Next to the 
last carriage was the Princess of Wales, a pleasant-looking 
lady; but a host of as well-dressed and superior-looking 
women may be seen any pleasant afternoon in the carriages 
of Central Park. Please bear in mind that the average Eng- 
lish woman, in court or tenement, is not handsome ; and 
don't get excited. 

But about the last carriage centred all the interest ; and it 
was to this the dense mass of people on the walks and in the 
•windows swung their hats and handkerchiefs. On the front- 
seat sat the Prince of Wales, heir-apparent to the British 
throne, and the Emperor of Russia ; on the back-seat were 
his daughter, and her husband the Duke of Edinburgh. 

I swallowed the emperor in at one famishing gulp. He 
was a monarch, and the most mighty in the world ; and it 
was a great gratification to me to see him in the flesh. But 
there were some disappointments. 

He had on pants. 

This surprised me. I don't know why it should ; only that 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 53 

I expected he would look different from any one else. Per- 
haps I would have been more surprised if he had been with- 
out pants. 

He also had on coat and vest, and looked every inch like 
a well-to-do banker rolHng leisurely down to the bank in , a 
carriage presented to him the night before by a circle of ad- 
miring stockholders. 

That was all there was to it, excepting that the two princes 
were fine-looking gentlemen, and the emperor's daughter 
was a pretty-faced girl of an American cast of countenance. 

It was all over in a minute. Many of the people were so 
lost in admiration of the gold-laced coachmen and footmen, 
that they did not recover in time to note the royal person- 
age. 

The whole thing was over in a half-minute. All this grav- 
elling of the road-bed, the monopoly of the police, the hours 
of patient waiting by the populace, the days of preparation 
by the shopkeepers, were all for this brief half-minute of 
glory. How tame and insignificant the whole thing looked ! 

The man who paid four guineas for himself and wife on a 
front-seat in a shop-window helped his wife out of the door 
without much ceremony, and started direct for home, bump- 
ing up against everybody with inexplicable perversity, and 
finding that not a single article of his clothing fitted him in 
any particular. So much for a London mob. 



54 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

IS MAINLY DEVOTED TO DESCRIBING HOW TO GET ABOUT 
LONDON. 

THERE are three objects of desire to the London visitor. 
One is the Tower of London ; another is St. Paul's 
Cathedral ; and the third is Westminster Abbey. 

-There are three other objects he has to see, whether he 
wants to or not. These are the cabmen, the hotel proprie- 
tors, and the servants. 

As it is absolutely necessary to see these last three before 
he can see the first three, I shall devote this letter to an hon- 
est, if not flattering, account of them. 

The first Englishman the tra^Teller meets is a burly and 
red-faced gentleman, with a big metal plate on his coat 
(front) , containing a number, mounted on the back of a cab, 
or the front of a hackney-carriage. 

He will grow familiar with this chap by the time he has 
been twenty-four hours in London. 

He will find the race patrolling every back-street, or stand- 
ing on every important thoroughfare ; and he will come to 
look upon them pretty much as a man looks upon a dog 
who has suddenly and most unexpectedly snapped at his leg. 

The reader will infer from these few remarks that there is 
something objectionable in the London cabmen ; and he is 
right. But, while I am free to condemn the class, I am 
equally free to credit them with one cardinal virtue : they are 
not offensively familiar. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 55 

They are to be found at the depots ; but they do not block 
the way, and scream at you until you are deafened and crazy. 
They do not mix onions with rum and tobacco, and scorch 
you with the dreadful simoon. They do not step on you, 
and jerk you off your feet, and jam your hat over your eyes. 
They do not pull off your coat and limbs, and distribute your 
baggage into five different hacks. 

They are in front of you, but not under you. They are 
to the right and to the left ; but they open not their mouths. 

The moment you step out of the cars into any one of the 
capacious depots in the cit)'^, a railway porter asks you if 
you will have a hack, and if you have luggage. He calls 
the hack, and, with the assistance of the driver, loads your 
luggage, loads yourself, closes the door, and touches his hat 
to you ; and you are off in a jiffy, feeling grateful for the 
relief and attention ; while the porter stands on the platform, 
and curses you in the bottomest recesses of his heart for not 
giving him a sixpence. 

Such is man when in health. 

When you reach the hotel, " the cabby," as a hackman is 
here called, jumps down with alacrity, and, with the assistance 
of the hotel porter, disembarks your luggage and yourself, 
charges you three shillings and sixpence, and is off again 
with an expression of purity on his countenance that is 
irresistible. You have a vague impression of reading on a 
card inside of the hackney, that any distance of two miles or 
less is to be charged one shilling ; and you go into the hotel, 
regretting that you have not time to stand on the curbstone 
and give full play to your feelings. 

It may be said that this system of extortion is common 
to all hackmen. Granted. But there are features of the 
London system which aggravate it far beyond the American 
process, and make it almost unbearable. 

In the first place, this, until you become acquainted with 
the omnibus routes, is your only means of transfer about the 



56 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

city; and your helplessness is taken advantage of. Sec- 
ondly, you are an American, with the impress of your na- 
tivity so indelibly set upon you, that no hackman fails to 
take advantage of your ignorance of the ways and customs 
of the country; and thus the American citizenship, upon 
which you have constantly, loudly, and almost offensively 
prided yourself, becomes a hated object to you. 

After you have got into the hotel, and cooled down, you 
find some consolation in the reflection that you were so help- 
less, that no hackman could be blamed for taking advantage 
of you. 

After this, however, you'd like to see 'em, accompanying 
the deduction with a movement of the fist indicative of the 
•belief that you never will see them do it again. 

There are hackneys and cabs : the former are four-wheel- 
ers, and the latter are two-wheelers. The latter are designed 
for two occupants. They open in front, giving the rider a 
full view of the street ahead, while the driver sits on a perch 
at the back. They are much the pleasanter of the two to 
ride in ; but the pleasure is in a measure modified by the 
discussion, recrimination, and perspiration which invariably 
follow the settling of the fare. 

With the four-wheelers one plucking appears to be enough ; 
and, once away from the depots, you are confident to be 
carried t^vo miles in any direction for a shilling. 

You take a Hansom (two-wheeler) for a half-mile drive, 
and throw the driver a shilhng. He looks at it in a perplexed 
and commiserative manner that is beyond all imitation, and 
asks, — 

"What's this for?" 

You patiently explain to him. He says eighteen-pence is 
the fare. You protest that the distance does not warrant 
that charge. He is stubborn. You can force him, so the 
card says, to drive to the nearest police-station for adjudica- 
tion. But you are a stranger. He may drive you to the 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 5/ 

first police-station, and he may drive you over the nearest 
embankment. 

You pay him a sixpence more, and curse the government 
under which he thrives. 

As long thereafter as you bear the mark of an American, 
so long will you be subject to the peculative tendencies of 
the Hansom cab-driver. The shilling goes to his employer ; ' 
and the sixpence is laid up by himself for a rainy day. 

It rains a great deal here. 

When you have mastered the intricacies of the omnibus 
lines, travelling about the city becomes a genuine pleasure. 

The English 'bus system is superior to ours, both as to 
the comfort of the passengers and the animals who draw 
them. On the box with the driver is accommodation for 
four persons. Running along the roof are two seats, back 
to back, reached by ladder on each side of the door. 
Here and inside are sittings for a certain number of people, 
the number being conspicuously marked on the 'bus ; and, 
when this complement is made up, no more are taken. Con- 
sequently there is no trodding of corns, or punches in the 
chest, by passengers unable to keep their feet. 

Each 'bus has its conductor ; and the fares, plainly marked 
inside, are graded with the distance, the lowest being two- 
pence, and the highest sixpence. 

The favorite place for the masculines is on top of the 
'bus, and the best place is on the box alongside the driver. 
I know of no better point from which to view the people 
than the box-seat of one of their 'buses. 

And the driver is a character in himself. Being naturally 
of a confiding nature, — although you might not suspect it, 
looking at him from the walk, — he thaws quickly to the man 
at his elbow, and will volunteer bits of information, senti- 
ment, and opinion, with the greatest freedom. He is appar- 
ently a reckless driver, and so are all the English drivers ; 
yet, with all my riding about, I saw but one collision, and 
that, being by a 'bus with a cab, was easily understood. 



58 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

Between the 'bus-driver and the cabman there is a rancor- 
ous feehng of hatred, which is most grateful to all the senses 
of the traveller who has suffered at the hands of the latter, 
because the motive-power and wheels of the former are so 
much greater and heavier, that the utter discomforture of 
the latter is a sure thing in the event of their coming together. 

I have sat on the box for an hour at a time, and heard 
the driver curse the "cabbies," and crowd them out of the 
way, until it did seem as if my cup of happiness was running 
over, and drowning people. 

And then to see the wrath of the cabby as he takes him- 
self out of the way of the ponderous and unrelenting wheels 
would make a dead man laugh, were he not otherwise 
engaged. 

I cannot explain why this animosity exists between the 
two classes ; but it does exist ; and this fact should content 
us, without desiring to pry into its causes. 

I use the term " cursing " unadvisedly, perhaps. We un- 
derstand, by that, profanity ; but the English are not given to 
"profanity." Whether this is because of there being no 
stoves here, or because of their religious training, I am not 
prepared to state. But they do not take the name of their 
God in vain. It is rarely you hear it done in London, or 
among the better classes anywhere in England. They are 
profuse with their " blarsted," and "bloody," and "dom," 
but nothing more serious. 

But they have a way of saying these, when in a hurry, that 
rarely fails of scaring the target, especially if that target is a 
stranger. 

On the 'bus you will hear such pleasant admonitions as 
these delivered to people or teams in the way : " Come, now, 
where are you?" "Whey there, blockhead ! '•' "Look sharp, 
cawn't you? " " Don't go to sleep, old man ! " and the like, 
all pronounced with a breadth of accent calculated to elec- 
trify the most stolid. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 59 



CHAPTER IX. 



LIVING IN LONDON. 



HOW to live while in London is certainly a matter of 
some moment. The claim, and it is neither rare nor 
unostentatious, that living is much cheaper in London than 
in New York, is without a vestige of truth to cover its naked 
and repulsive form. (Copyright secured.) 

The European hotel system is much different from the 
American hotel system, as we all know ; but the difference is 
not entirely in the way the meals are served. But of that 
anon. 

There are four ways of living here, — the British- American 
hotel, the English inn, the boarding-house, and the lodging. 

The first-named is American only in the particular of size. 
Believing that Americans want something vast, Londoners 
have put up several hotels to meet this want, and there 
stopped. And so we have ponderous halls, with nothing 
to sit down upon ; colossal offices filled with baggage, void 
of settees, and enlivened by an occasional time-table ; and 
massive sitting-rooms, all pillars and tapestry. There is a 
place to sleep, and a place to eat, and a place to shut your- 
self in and smoke, — as if smoking was a penance to be un- 
dergone in solitude and bitterness, — and that is all. 

There is no bar (you drink in the smoking-room), no 
sociable sitting-room, no bustling and cheerful office, no 
place to lounge about in and chat. In fact, the British- 



6o ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

American hotel is a huge sepulchre, about whose door there 
is no hfe nor animation. The guest has the pleasure of 
walking in marble halls, and there the entertainment ceases. 
The clerk of the house is a woman, — a young woman, 
invariably dressed in black, with black hair and eyes, and a 
face suggestive of a severe attack of neuralgia. She is the 
same in one part of London as in the other, in Liverpool 
as in London ; dresses the same, and looks the same. The 
singular uniformity makes you uneasy after a while, and fills 
y-ou with an aching desire to return home. 

What kind of a way is this, I would like to know, to play 
with travellers ? It is taking a mean advantage of the chiv- 
alrous American nature to have his bills made out, and his 
wants snubbed, by a person he can't swear at. 

The genuine Enghsh inn, of which there are very few in 
London, is much superior to the hotel we have just disposed 
of. Its prime object is comfort ; and while its bill of fare 
is not exactly what we have been used to, yet the effort 
of its people to make every thing pleasant and cqnvenient 
is so apparent, that we feel as much at home as is possible 
for one to feel in a hotel. 

The boarding-house is just what a boarding-house is any- 
where, in one particular, — you pay so much a week for 
lodgings and meals. If you are away from meals, it is not 
deducted ; if you are too late for a hot meal, and have a 
cold one served up to you instead, it is charged against you ; 
if you have coffee or tea at dinner or luncheon, it is charged 
against you. The " extras "are a sort of electrical battery, 
which is turned on you every Saturday night, and makes you 
squirm in spite of yourself. The lodging is a sleeping-room to 
be obtained in any quarter of the city. The meals are served 
at the house where your room is, or you can get them from 
some neighboring coffee-room. This is a favorite way of 
living here, both with the natives and visitors. The coffee 
or dining rooms are numerous, but not so comfortable as are 
ours. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 6l 

The " European plan " as it is understood in America, 
and the " European plan " as it is understood by Europeans 
themselves, has points of difference that are most frightfully 
conspicuous. 

In the English city hotel you go into the coffee-room and 
give your order for the meal, and then wait until it is cooked. 
The bill of fare mentions simply the principal dishes attaina- 
ble ; such as fish, joint, and entree for dinner ; for breakfast, 
cold or hot meats ; for luncheon, the same as for breakfast. 

Roast is the acceptable mode of preparing meat here, and 
you are bombarded with roast beef until you fairly hate to 
hear the name (this refers more especially to cold roast beef) . 
Steak, measuring full two inches in thickness, is broiled around 
the edges very nicely. Fish and cutlets are well cooked. 
These English are just as conservative in eating as in any 
thing else they undertake, and look not with friendly eyes 
upon innovation and variety. Their meals are hearty but 
plain, the principal ingredients being roast meat and ale or 
wine. Those who have tried the American bill of fare, 
with its wonderful variety of dishes, and " all the delicacies 
of the season," affect to despise it : they speak disdainfully 
of it as being " a mass of stuff in little plates," which, eaten or 
not, is paid for. Ah, heavens ! how I would like an oppor- 
tunity to personally despise a few of those meals ! 

If you go into an American restaurant and order a plate 
of food, it is given you, with vegetable accompaniments, and 
bread and butter : if you order it at an English restaurant, 
you get just the specified dish of food, and nothing else. 
But you will find no difference in the price favorable to the 
English mode. If you want vegetables, you specify the kind, 
and get them, and pay for each. If you want butter, that 
is also furnished you upon a notice to that effect, and promptly 
charged against you. 

And both restaurants are conducted on the "European 
plan." What you order you get, and only that. 



62 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

The abruptness with which the supply snaps off close to 
the demand is sometimes startling. 

Their loaf-bread has -a flavor to it difficult to describe. It 
is solid, but not heavy ; queer, but not sour. They cut it 
up into square or three-cornered hunks, and serve it without 
butter ; in which condition it is the most solemn article of 
food I ever saw. 

The trouble with the bread is that it is stale. Fresh bread, 
they claim, is not fit for the stomach. 

I learned this by accident. Ordering a plate of bread 
and butter for tea, the landlady appeared to explain, with 
many apologies, that she had nothing but fresh bread in the 
house. 

Fresh bread ! 

And so it was stale bread that I had been attacking the 
citadels of my life with, and driving my brain into chaos in 
hopeless endeavor to fathom its nature. 

I told the landlady to bring in a few slices of the fresh 
article, and we would try to worry it down. 

T believe we did. 

When the American leaves his native country to come to 
England, he leaves pie behind. 

I have been to some of the print-shops to see if they have 
any pictures of pies ; but I can find none. 

They have photographs in profusion of the royal family, 
and eminent men of Church and State ; but the pie of my 
native land is forgotten. It is a negative, but not a photog- 
rapher's negative. 

On their tables they have tarts, compounded in a way 
similar to our pies, and baked in deep dishes. And thus 
they have rhubarb, gooseberry, and apple tarts ; but they are 
poor substitutes. 

I see plenty of cake in the bakers' windows ; but I pre- 
sume it is entirely consumed by private enterprise, as neither 
at the hotels nor boarding-houses do I find it on the table. 
They are wonderfully careful of the American digestion. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 63 

But they do have cauliflower ; yes, I am quite sure they 
have cauliflower. If I am not greatly mistaken, they have it 
every day. I feel safe in saying that one man will eat, in the 
course of a year, about four tons of boiled cauHflower. He 
will do it, unless he gets a pistol and takes the law in his 
own hands. 

Living is not cheaper here than it is in the States. Board 
and lodging at the hotels is about three dollars a day in gold ; 
at the boarding-house, about twelve dollars a week. In nei- 
ther of these quotations are the extras included ; and they 
quite frequently amount to a third of the regular charge. 

Most people rent rooms for lodging, and take their meals 
at the restaurant. In a respectable portion of the city a 
room costs from three to eight dollars a week, and the meals 
not less than fifty cents each. I don't know but that a 
single man can "grub around " at about eight or nine dollars 
a week ; but the cost of taking in his clothes would about 
balance the saving. 



64 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER X. ^ 



GOING TO THE DERBY. 



I SHALL commence this at the beginning, and strive to 
write it cahnly and coherently. 

If I should let run the enthusiasm I feel, if I should grasp 
the pencil, with the blood jumping through my veins as it 
does jump when I think of that glorious event now scarcely 
twenty-four hours old, there would be no intelligible account 
of the grand carnival in this letter ; but it would be a mere 
chaos of black and white, with no form nor comeliness ; a 
perfect wreck ; a simple newspaper map of the Chicago fire, 
as it were. 

The opening of the London season, the coming of the 
Czar, did not crowd the great city to the same extent as did 
the day of the Derby. 

Every hotel was thronged, and every lodging-house full. 
The visitor who left his hotel accommodation till the day 
before found himself an unprofitable wanderer of the streets 
until the sun of Derby day arose. 

At promptly quarter-past eight o'clock that morning, myself 
and several friends reported at our booking-place ; and, tak- 
ing seats on top of a pleasure-van drawn by four good English 
horses, we drove down through Charing Cross, across West- 
minster Bridge, and swung out into the current to the 
Derby. 

It was a splendid day. A sharp rain in the night had laid 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 65 

the dust, cooled the fever of the earth, and moistened and 
refreshed every spear of grass, and every root and twig. 

It was scarcely nine o'clock, and the particular race called 
the Derby (the foohsh people here call it the Darby) was 
not to come off until nearly six hours later ; yet the street 
through which we were passing to Epsom Downs was already 
alive with traps, and every feeding avenue was contributing 
to swell the current. 

And such a current ! There was the gayly-painted pleas- 
ure 'bus; the steady-going city 'bus; the dashing four-in- 
hand drag, with the passengers all outside, and the richly 
upholstered inside filled with hampers (baskets) of food for 
the stomach, and jugs and bottles of food for reflection ; the 
two-wheeled dog-cart, with four occupants back to back; 
the two-wheeled car, like the half of a muskmelon-shell, with 
its four occupants face to face, and smiling like mad ; the 
stylish barouche ; the sober hackney-coach ; the impudent 
and never-to-be-forgiven Hansom, with its Capt. Kadd at 
the back, and its pair of outraged victims in the front, hold- 
ing up a basket of victuals, and yelling like demons ; the 
steady-going one-horse chaise ; the carriage of the aristocrat, 
with dumpy, gnarled, and grotesquely-jacketed postilions 
jumping along with features as immovable as the works of 
a cheap watch ; the little pony phaeton ; the quaint cart of 
the costermonger, with the costermonger himself, and the 
costermonger's wife and the costermonger's children, as 
boisterous a crowd as is on the street we are now cantering 
along at a lively pace. 

There are other traps of different kinds with whose cog- 
nomens I have no acquaintance, but all looking clean and 
nice, and none worked up for the occasion, as is the case of 
our carryalls metamorphosed from dirt-wagons, and embel- 
lised with cheap colored paper. 

The English gentleman thinks a great deal of his horse, 
and wants a trap that will bear him proper company. 



66 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

We are getting out of the bustle and rattle of the city 
now, and are bowling along through little brick hamlets, by 
glorious hedges, brick-walled gardens, and staring but merry 
people. 

Everybody knows it is the Derby, the great race day of 
England, and famous the world over ; and everybody from 
far and near is going to Epsom Downs, or is here along the 
roadside, watching the thousands who are more fortunate. 

We are out on the road now ; and there are two streams 
of horses and traps pouring toward the race, but not a soli- 
tary trap coming the other way. 

We have got the road all to ourselves ; and from the top 
of our van we can see in both directions a moving black 
mass, with here and there a white dress or hat, or a colored 
parasol, to relieve the darkness. 

Along the roadside are hurrying pedestrians; and boys 
who turn somersaults, and disclose the wrong side of their 
pants, for the trifling sum of a penny from some good- 
natured party ; and filthy-looking women, with dirty babies in 
their arms, begging, for the love of God, for a penny to buy 
food, and swearing like a trooper when the occasion required. 

Here and there is a weary child, ragged and soiled, curled 
up on the cool grass, and fast asleep, dreaming of the glory 
that his little legs have failed to bring him to ; and by him or 
over him step the walking throng, hesitating not to "chaff" 
broadcloth and satin, but careful not to disturb the sleep 
of tired rags. 

What a grand impulse is this of a hurrying, giddy English 
throng to guard the slumber of a soiled and tattered waif ! 
And he thus sleeping, unconscious of the haste, the noise, 
and the shrill gayety passing about and over him, rests as 
quietly and retired as if on the roof of Schuyler Colfax's 
house. Miserable boy ! how can he be so happy under a 
monarchical form of government? 

I could not help but think, if he had been on a Yankee 



I 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 6/ 

road, going to a Yankee race, the case would have assumed 
a different aspect. Even the recording angel would have 
some difficulty in accounting for him. 

The farther we left London behind, the denser became the 
crowd of vehicles, and the more numerous grew the hampers 
and jugs. Facetious individuals with false noses and false 
whiskers attract a toiTcnt of observation ; and every one pass- 
ing or being passed was screamed at, and screamed back 
again, until our faces were as red as a country schoolhouse, 
and our throats too sore to breathe through. 

Here and there on the way was a public-house, whose pres- 
ence was made known by the momentary blockading of the 
road, created by the teams turning up to its door ; and, rat- 
tling by them, we see all the paraphemaha of a boisterous 
crowd enjoying itself. Here are several traps unloading; 
others spreading a lunch, or balancing bottles and jugs; 
hostlers sponging the noses of the animals ; postilions run- 
ning about ; people shouting and laughing their way in and 
out of the house ; negro minstrels making discordant uproar 
on inoffensive instruments ; and waiters, drivers, and passen- 
gers butting into each other, and trying to get in a rage, 
but ignominiously failing. 

Pretty soon we came in sight of the railroad, and saw 
train after train, loaded to its fullest carrying capacity, shoot- 
ing rapidly across the landscape, and on the way to Epsom. 

It was now noon ; but the people were not tired. Three 
full hours we had been on the way ; but there was no abate- 
ment of the spirit or chaffing. 

Every odd man, every man with two women when he 
ought to have had but one, every man with no woman, every 
woman with a sunshade, every woman without a sunshade, 
everybody in general, everybody in particular, was chaffed. 

It was a day when all England was democratic ; when no 
man became responsible for his language or actions, as long 
as he confined them within the bounds of decency. 



68 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

To an American unused to such license and have it legal, 
unused to such boundless good-nature in a mob and have 
it universal, the scene was most inspiring. 

Being an American, I banged my heels into the roof of 
the 'bus, and laughed like a lunatic. 

I was laughing like that when we came in sight of the 
downs, the grand stand, the picketed carriages, the booths, 
and the bubbling confusion of a great concourse of people. 

This was the racing-ground at Epsom, — the Downs, so 
called. 

From familiarity with a place through notable events con- 
nected with it, we are apt to ascribe to it features peculiar to 
the events in question, and which are not common to any 
other place. 

Yet, after all, the Derby is but one race of many scores on 
a race-track. Epsom Do\vns is a piece of open country. 
The greater portion of the track is on the slope of a ridge, 
which has a similar slope opposite. The track is full a hun- 
dred feet in breadth, I should think, and is of turf, not in 
any way distinguishable from any portion of the downs. 
The racing is in the saddle, and not by driving. 

There is nothing remarkable about the turf, or the earth 
under it, or the trees and hedges in the distance. They are 
just like other turf, other earth, and other trees and hedges 
seen from a distance. 

No one, unless mounted on the grand stand, can see the 
whole track at one view. A ridge in the centre obstructs the 
view, but affords room for eating-booths and extraordinary 
side-shows. 

I am not over here to describe the race, the wagers, the 
time, or the emotions of the beholders. These are matters 
the interested are already acquainted with in the daily papers. 
I merely tell what I saw among the people ; for that was all 
new to me, and entertained me. 

Yet wherever I might go, I could see only a part of the 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 69 

track. Shortly after our arrival, a race came off. I was 
right in front of the grand stand, and flattered myself that I 
was taking it all in. 

I had about six square inches of room, and was enjoying 
myself. Pretty soon there was a cry of " Here they come ! " 

The crowd, which had up to this instant remained com- 
paratively quiet, here commenced to agitate ; and, from trying 
to see the race, I came to having a well-grounded anxiety as 
to whether I should ever see my childhood's home again. 

I lost all interest in the race ; in fact, I forgot all about it 
for a moment, and fell to struggling with the mass to save my 
hfe. 

The more I kicked and pushed and protested, the nan-ow- 
er space I was penned into. I began to feel scared. • 

I told several of the people about me, that, if they didn't 
quit pushing, I would bring them before the highest tribunal 
in the land ; but it had no visible effect upon them ; although 
we cannot look into the hearts of men, and tell what they 
suffer, especially in such a crowd as I was now in. 

But the race was over in a moment ; and the crowd surged 
away to the paddocks, leaving me a chance to get out and 
feel of myself. I lost no time in getting across the course 
through the line of carriages on the other side, and up the 
sloping ridge to the amusement and eating vans. In front 
of these there were not now many people ; and here I could 
sit on the turf, and shake my fist (figuratively) at the black 
mass of people opposite, and the white mass of masonry 
back of them. 

I imagine racing in England occupies a more elevated 
position than racing in America. Here among this throng 
were nobles, priests, and peasants, everybody excited, every- 
body thoroughly interested. 

There were other features different from the same scene 
on American grounds. There was a great deal of loud talk- 
ing and swindling, and grit in the ham sandwiches ; but there 



'JO ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

were no broils. When one man fell over another, he 
didn't move away without explaining " what in h — 11 he did 
that for ; " but he turned around and said, " Beg pardon, 
sir ; " and the other man said, "All right," and brushed him- 
self off without any ado. 

There were impossible feats on the horizontal bar, of course, 
and wild Indians, and men with one eye in the middle of 
their valuable heads (which with two good eyes would not 
be worth any thing) , and other monstrosities ; but these are 
common to all countries which are civilized and have reli- 
gious freedom. 

But there were other sights which I never saw before, and 
which interested me by their novelty. The most favorite 
recreation was the cocoanut game. It consisted of ten to 
twenty stakes (the number varying according to thfe capital 
of the proprietor) held upright in baskets of earth, and sus- 
taining each a cocoanut. Back of these, as a guard, was 
stretched a strip of canvas. There were also a number of 
stakes, about fifteen inches in length, to be thrown at the 
stakes holding the cocoanuts. A penny entitled the thirster 
after cocoanut to tliree of the short stakes. The cocoanuts 
were placed in a line, with a space of five feet between them. 
The thrower stood at the front, about thirty feet off, and, 
having spit on his hands, fired away. 

If he knocked down a stake, and the cocoanut fell outside 
of the basket, he was entitled to the luxury. I don't know 
how the proprietor (who stood among the stakes, and reset 
them as they fell over) mounted those cocoanuts ; but it was 
rarely that one of them dropped outside the small basket. 

They went in there with a precision that was highly exas- 
perating to the thrower, who, however indifferent he pretend- 
ed to feel at the commencement of the game, grew deadly 
in earnest as he saw his chances dwindling. 

When several people engaged in the play at once at a sin- 
gle stand, it made lively work for the proprietor down among 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 71 

the standing and flying stakes. His own cocoanut appeared 
to be the only one he was in danger of losing. 

I don't know how it would feel to be struck in the pit of 
the stomach with one of those stakes ; for, although I had 
some curiosity to learn, I carefully smothered the feeling. 
But I imagine, from their weight (about two pounds) , that a 
man running against one with his abdomen would have a 
very large and respectable funeral, although he might not 
get around in time to attend it himself. 

I have said there was a canvas guard up to prevent the 
stakes from flying too far, or hitting innocent people. Once 
in a while a stake hurled by some vehement admirer of cocoa- 
nuts would go over the canvas, and alight among people who 
never pretended not to feel surprised by the occurrence. 

One man kept at the sport until he won five cocoanuts. 

I am thankful to this hour that I did not have to sleep 
with him that night. 

Some of the proprietors used sawdust cushions and cheap 
dolls in place of the nuts. 

Once in a while some lady would try her hand at throwing 
the clubs. When she commenced, every married man left 
the neighborhood with precipitation. The others remained 
until they got flattened out with a wipe along the jaw ; when 
they jumped up, and left too. 

One lady in throwing a stake struck an aunt by marriage, 
and broke in two of her teeth. The aunt was standing in 
rear of her, and, having got a tent between bpth, thought she 
was comparatively secure. It only teaches us how mutable 
are the things of this earth. I don't suppose the people on 
the grand stand were really safe at the time. 

There was the game of skillets^ a sort of clumsy ninepins, 
the pins being knocked over by a huge flat circular block of 
lignumvitae thrown by a person standing ofl" some eight or 
ten feet. 

The platforms used were of coarse boards ; and, when the 



72 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

pins came down among them, a stranger with his back to 
the affair was easily pardoned for jumping straight up in the 
air without premeditation. 

There were all sorts of people about me, and most all Eng- 
lish. There were men with heavy top-boots, and others with 
leggings, and others in full suits of velveteen, and others 
with knee-breeches, and many in corduroy, and a few with 
flaming red vests reaching down to their hips. 

I didn't hear the uproarious bluster in the betting, char- 
acteristic of the few American races a kind Providence has 
permitted me to attend. The excitement of the men in the 
wagering was of that intense kind that permitted of but little 
noisy escape. But enormous sums were exchanged in a very 
quiet way ; and the losers didn't make any complaint, al- 
though they sought to exert no control over their lower jaws. 

I was standing on this central ridge I speak of, and oppo- 
site the grand stand and its thronged wings, when the Derby 
race took place. I saw the horses go around to take the 
position (for they do not start from the grand stand, and 
make the circuit of the course in a heat, but take position 
back, and make but three-quarters of the course, and ^\^nd 
up at the grand stand) ; and knowing it to be the Derby, 
the famous Derby, I watched the proceedings intently. 
Away up the course, on each side, was a mass of speckled 
black and gray, which were the people. The course could 
not be seen for the multitude ; for they thronged every space. 
Then the police, the wonderfully efficient London police, 
swooped do^vn upon the occupiers of the course ; and, in a 
very few moments, not a single human foot pressed its soft 
turf. It was free, and shone up among the dense mass of 
people hke an emerald band around the neck of a mortified 
individual. A rather pretty simile, I take it. 

All of us strained our eyes to the long sweep of course 
visible to us. Every breath seemed to be held in abeyance ; 
and for a full moment there was a dead silence, where but 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 73 

an instant before was a Babel of voices. Then came the cry 
of " There they come ! " And, sure enough, there they came 
around the turn, — the fleet horses, with their monkeyish 
attired jockeys on their backs, just as you have seen it in the 
pubHc prints a score of times. 

The tails of the animals stuck straight out, and they tore 
down that course as if some cruel devil had been fooling 
around them with lighted camphene. We could see them 
bound over the greensward between the lines of the massed 
humanity, and hear the shouts of the people as the red shirt, 
and blue shirt, and white shirt, and yellow shirt whizzed 
past. 

Then they reached the grand stand ; and the black and 
gray multitude surged like a stormy sea into the course 
again, and moved irresistibly up to that point. 

The great Derby was over; the event of the year had 
gone to be numbered with the past ; and thousands of pounds 
were lost and won, and thousands of expectations realized 
and blasted. 

And, after that, the enormous throng of people, with their 
twenty thousand vehicles, began to look about for the home- 
start ; and from that time until near midnight the huge army 
was in motion. 

Many hundreds of people had come to Epsom by the 
cars to-day who had previously gone by road. On this day 
there can be no class distinctions in the trains, — the greasy 
and dirty and profane crowd in with the clean, the upright, 
and the decent ; but the dust of the road is so blinding and 
strangulating, that many run the risk of indecent language 
and putrefied breaths to get rid of the dust. 

But it had rained the night before, and the road out was 
as free of dust as the kitchen of a New- England farmhouse ; 
yet many of the gentlemen taking the road had provided 
green veils, which were idly twisted about their black and 
white hats, and added a picturesque effect to the scene. 



74 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

If the drive out was a season of gayety, the drive in was a 
grand carnival. 

The frolic now became more definitely boisterous. Each 
of the drags, and many of the omnibuses, were provided 
with bugles. Scores of men had taken on false noses and 
whiskers, or adorned themselves with little wooden dolls of 
pliable hmbs, which they worked in all directions, according 
as their taste suggested, or the occasion seemed to demand. 
These dolls were stuck in their hat-bands, pinned to their 
breasts, or held in the hand. I do not doubt that there 
were at least five thousand of them on the line homewards. 
It is an odd conceit ; but crowds are given to odd conceits. 

There was also another feature of the procession which 
was not quite so harmless as that of the dolls. It was the 
pea-shooters with which the outside passengers had provided 
themselves, and busily used on passing fellows, to the great 
danger of their eyesight. 

We finally got away from the grounds, and took our place 
as a particle in the mass which was rapidly melting off, and 
escaping through the channel of the highway to London. 

The road was thronged, frequendy blocked, and at no time 
passable at a greater speed than a Avalk. 

But the chaffing, and flying peas, and convulsive dolls con- 
tinued without abatement. 

We branched off to another road for relief, but succeeded 
only in reaching another and equally strong current of leather, 
flesh, and wood ; and, jumping into it at the first opening, 
our gayly-colored van was swept along with the current. 

What a jolly, rollicking crowd was that ! How they huz- 
zaed and sang and laughed, and chafled their neighbors and 
villagers, and sounded their bugles ! 

Every one of the numerous villages of brick and cobble 
we passed through contributed its enthusiastic witnesses to 
the pageant ; and, as we rolled through the paved and narrow 
high street, we were saluted from every door and window, 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 75 

and saluted in return with a vigor that showed there was 
nothing small about us. 

Old men in the procession whooped with the rest. Mid- 
dle-aged and fleshy women, resting back in their seats, shook 
sandwiches and vegetables at their turbulent fellows ; while 
others, mounting their handkerchiefs on their sticks, swung 
them to the breeze, or waved wine-bottles and wine-glasses 
above their heads. 

Men, women, and children, in the carriage, on the walk, 
or in the window, threw kisses, winks, amorous glances, and 
rather broad innuendoes, at each other, with a freedom that 
was appalling to a stranger. 

Some of the ladies looking over garden- walls or from lattice 
windows did not seem to appreciate the dehcate attentions 
spooney young men were levelling at them from the top of 
the passing 'buses and drags ; but others answered back as 
cordially as was sent to them. 

Here and there on the green turf, by the roadside, a 
family had drawn up their trap, and, with a white cloth be- 
fore them, had spread out a tempting meal, and were doing 
ample justice to it, cutting, chewing, drinking, and shout- 
ing in one breath. 

Here, in a garden to a public-house, in front of which 
were a stamping and noisy crowd of men and horses, were 
long tables hastily set, with scores of our fellow-travellers 
taking tea, ale, wine, and sandwiches as coolly and as calmly 
as if the road, which a hedge separated from them, was not 
trembling beneath the weight of an uproarious Derby crowd. 

It was nine o'clock, and still daylight, and we were three 
hours on the road ; but yet we had not come into London. 

All about were broad green fields, acres of smooth turf 
and beautiful park, hedges and gardens, blossoms and scents, 
cottage and hall. 

The roar of the ifmltitude grew in magnitude. Imagine 
a hundred and fifty thousand people bent on having fun, and 



^6 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

hurting nobody, let loose through two noble highways, and 
you get an idea of the society I found myself in. 

It was such a good-natured throng, and so susceptible to 
sensation ! It laughed at a hedge, screamed at a tree, 
shouted at a cloud, and roared at a breeze. 

We came into the suburbs of London like a victorious 
army encumbered with spoils. * The crowds on the walks 
grew denser as we progressed, until it did seem as if another 
universe had turned out to meet us. 

The chaffing grew fearfully thick at this stage ; and little 
boys, with each a pound of flour held together by the feeble 
offices of a paper bag, stole surreptitiously alongside of our 
vans and cars, and donated us the parcels with a heartiness 
that spoke well for their generosity, but wore on the paper. 
The party on our van looked like a crowd of indignant mill- 
ers trying to climb a fence. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 77 



CHAPTER XI. . 



STREET-SCENES. 



IT is only of such sights as may be obtained from the top 
of an omnibus that I speak. These are common to the 
eye of every pedestrian, and are the contrasts to his own 
city which most directly appeal to him. 

If I should go down into the depths of woe in this great 
city, I am afraid there is not paper enough in Paternoster 
Row to give the details of the poverty, crime, and habits of 
the denizens. To tell the truth, the more I go about Lon- 
don, the more painfully am I impressed with the impossibility 
of seeing all of it, or even half of it. I wish I could be 
certain of seeing one-third of it during my sojourn of six 
weeks. And yet there are Americans by the thousand who 
remain in London scarcely one week, and hasten on to Paris 
to stay a month. 

The streets of London do not claim attention by their 
breaclth, straightness, or comeliness of buildings ; but the life 
and animation characterizing them from nine o'clock a.m. to 
twelve o'clock p.m. attract, and quite frequently fascinate, the 
stranger. 

London is made up of Englishmen, Americans, and for- 
eigners ; and the last-named are so scarce as to be immedi- 
ately noticeable. 

You do not see here an English builder with German 
workmen and Irish servants. The merchants, the manufac- 



jZ ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

turers, and the business-men generally, are English ; their 
clerks and workmen are English ; the coachmen are English ; 
the porters are English ; the servant-girls are English ; the 
newsboys and bootblacks, and gamins generally, are English. 

Wherever you turn, you see Enghsh, Enghsh, English. It 
is an imposing spectacle. 

Broad jaws, sloping shoulders, red cheeks, flaxen hair, side- 
whiskers, gaiters, round sack-coats, stiff" hats, canes, umbrel- 
las, and eye-glasses, — all Enghsh. There is the large Eng- 
lishman just coming along in a suit of check-goods, with 
broad chest, swelling stomach, fat cheeks delicately checked 
with red veins. The stick he carries in his hand is stanch 
enough to knock down a horse. I was going to say a bul- 
lock, only I recollect having seen a man at a cattle-market 
knock down bullock after bullock with simply the index-fin- 
ger of his right hand : so I say horse advisedly. He uses 
that stick too, and you can distinctly see every time he 
places it down on the pavement. He wears a high hat. 

Right behind him is a thin young man in plaid suit, with 
a round-top hat, a light flaxen mustache, blue eyes, a scarce- 
ly defined line of hair on each cheek. He has a cane also, 
but carefully guards against striking the pavement with it. 
He wears a prominent nose. 

And next to him is a pair of very flowing side-whiskers, a 
suit of black with white vest and enormous seals, blue eyes, 
red cheeks, and a stick grasped in the middle, and carried 
at an angle of forty-five or less degrees. 

Then there is the oldish man, with very little whiskers any 
way, in rusty black, with a silk hat that seems to have just 
come frorn beating a score of boys out of a yard. He has 
a forelock combed to the front ; has watery eyes, and a nose 
that requires a great deal of attention, but is neglected, I 
fear. 

Then, too, there is the clerk, in a suit of black, with white 
tie, a thin body, thinner legs, no beard, and a high hat. I 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 79 

don't understand him ; for he is not distinctively English. 
I think I have seen him before. 

About these are men in caps, heavy white aprons, and 
loose sack-coats, who are either porters or mechanics. 

And among them all is the London boy. I never get 
tired of studying the London boy. There is so much of 
him ! — not individually, but collectively. Individually he is 
slim, with generally a white, unhealthy face, spindhng legs, 
and rather narrow back of the head. He wears pants tight 
to his shrinking shanks, and a cap that makes him look like 
an orphan boarding with a maiden aunt, who, early in life, 
met with a disappointment. He is a poor boy, without doubt, 
always on the street, and always in the way. I never saw 
such a boy in any other city. He is not quarrelsome, not 
saucy, not addicted to smoking ; and I never heard one of 
them swear, even under the most favorable circumstances. 
To tell the truth, I never heard them say much of any thing. 

He is a helpless youth, addicted to store-windows, rubbing 
against buildings, and toppling over obstructions. He has 
a dreadful tendency to be always backing up against some- 
thing, and always missing it, to the detriment of his bones. 

Only they do not fall with sufficient force to break a bone. 
I have seen one of them slide from the side of a lamp-post, 
turn a part somersault, recover himself, hit up against the 
post again, slip off the curb, and gradually get down on his 
back in the gutter, taking in all some dozen seconds to do 
it ; while an American boy would go down, and stave a hole 
in the back of his head, and make a doctor's bill of eighteen 
dollars, in less than a second. 

But the English are so conservative ! 

We don't see such quaint-looking characters at home as 
we do here. The oddities of the several- nations are so 
blended in America as to be materially dulled ; but here, 
where there are no new and diverse elements coming in and 
uniting with the native, the quaint is well defined and well 
preserved. 



80 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

I have always thought that Dickens and Cruikshank were 
fearful exaggerators ; but I have met with a revulsion of 
feehng. 

But whatever that is odd, in figure, dress, or speech, to a 
visitor, seems to be all right to the people here, sacredly as 
they are devoted to chaffing. 

Into a restaurant the other day came a man who was a mar- 
vel of angles and antiquity. He was over six feet in height, 
but would not weigh a hundred and twenty-five pounds. 
His clothing was black, and most wonderfully ill-fitting. He 
wore a black stock, over which his sharp cliin dangled in a 
desponding manner. There were black cotton gloves on 
his wonderfully long hands ; and he carried them as if they 
were full to the brim with precious liquids. 

His was a large mouth, of the shape of a letter-box aper- 
ture ; and his very red and very prominent gums shone con- 
spicuously through. He had a large nose, of the color of 
the gums ; large, watery eyes. His hair was a light brown, 
rather thin, and plastered down to his head, his cheeks, and 
his neck. A rusty-looking black hat with an enormous crape 
band completed the spectacle. He was a clergyman, with- 
out doubt ; and a dissenter, perhaps. Remembering that a 
graveyard was near, I moved about uneasily ; but the attend- 
ants and guests took no particular notice of him. 

He bought a penny bun, asking the price in a sepulchral 
voice; and stood in the middle of the floor, and ground 
away at the insignificant bread as if he were a grist-mill, with 
a half-ton of com in its clutch. 

The photograph windows are objects of great interest 
here as elsewhere ; but it is noticeable how fond the English 
are of viewing the pictures of royalty. Wherever they are 
exposed, there i^ sure to be a knot of intense admirers. I 
think they attract even more attention than the pictures of 
bare-legged actresses ; and would say so, if I were sure of 
being beheved. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 8 1 

I suppose every one of us who come here has an un- 
quenchable longing to look with our own eyes upon a mem- 
ber of the royal family. It is not to admire them that we 
have this desire ; but we want to abhor them. I think that 
is the feeling. I made many an effort to get at the royal 
family, that I might abhor them, before success crowned my 
attempts. I have gone twenty miles to abhor a single mem- 
ber of the Queen's household. 

There are but few advantages to the many drawbacks of 
being royal. A royal person in business has the advantage, 
when travelling, of not having to look up a hotel, on arriving 
at his destination, under the torturing supervision of a har- 
dened cabman. That is about the only advantage I can 
detect. But to offset this is a multitude of disadvantages, 
and it takes a multitude to do it. The Queen goes nowhere 
really. She is the ruler of all Britain ; but I wager there are 
hundreds of streets in her own city of London which she 
never saw. How often she has heard of Cheapside, and 
wondered how it looked ! How much she has read of the 
gayety of the watering-places, and sighed for just one glimpse ! 
How frequently she has been told of the excitement of the 
Derby road, the exhilaration of a ride on the top of a stage- 
coach, the fascination of legerdemain, the glory of the 
ballet, the comfort of old inns, the rustic beauty of England's 
farmhouses, the glitter and charm of the lighted shops, the 
wonders of the underground railways, the delight of a soda- 
water fountain in full blast, and many, many other things 
which the commonest subject enjoys, but which she is 
eternally shut out from ! 

She has her palace and her walled-in gardens ; and, stand- 
ing there, she can say to the people of London, " Here you 
cannot come." But they, with their miles of streets, and 
multitude of glories, can jaw back to their Queen, "Here 
you can't come ! " 

I never go by those walled gardens, but I think that there 



82 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

are just as envious eyes on one side of the masonry as on 
the other. 

She can walk there as much as she hkes, and by herself: 
but there is no swapping gossip and preserve-recipes over 
the gate with the woman in the next house ; nor a run out 
in the afternoon to see Mrs. Jones's shawl, and to show her 
own. 

What does she know of neighborly comforts ? What does 
she know of the exquisite enjoyment' of badgering a 
shopkeeper into lunacy over a paper of hairpins, or of the 
subtle excitement of hoarding up old rags to exchange for 
new tin ? 

However, I was going to speak of royalty photographed ; 
and to show that the same longings for what we have not 
got, rather than the enjoyment of what we possess, is com- 
mon to us all, royal or ragged, we need but to look at these 
photographs. 

Now, when were these pictures taken? who took them? 
and how came they in the market? Did the Queen and 
the other royal members go to the galleries of the men whose 
imprints are on the cards ? 

Certainly not. 

Why not? 

Because no photograph-gallery on the face of the earth is 
built large enough to accommodate them. Imagine the 
Queen going up two pairs of narrow stairs in quest of a pho- 
tograph-gallery, with four and twenty nobleman in advance, 
and a half-dozen knights in advance of them, and fourteen 
squires ahead of the knights, and then, back of her, twelve 
waiting-women with skirts four yards long, with four bishops 
back of them, the lord-mayor back of the bishops, all the 
foreign ambassadors back of the lord-mayor, a couple scores 
of diplomates and soldiers back of the ambassadors, a large 
assortment of knights and lords back of them, and the high 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 83 

sheriff of London bringing up the rear in red cloth and gold 
lace ! 

What photographer could stand that ? And, if any photog- 
rapher could, his stairs and room couldn't. A nice specta- 
cle it would be, wouldn't it, with the lord-mayor sitting on a 
spittoon, and each ambassador on a bottle of chemicals ! 

Imagine the Queen sailing around with that throng in 
quest of a paper of hairpins ! And that is just the way the 
wretched woman would have to move, if she moved outside 
at all. 

But to come back to those pictures again. We don't 
know where they were taken, or by whom they were taken ; 
and so we solve that difficulty by giving it up. But how 
came they in the market? There is no other way than 
with the consent of the parties themselves to the artist to 
make copies. 

Here we have the gentlemen in sitting posture, for the 
gratification of their friends ; in standing and leaning posture, 
by the side of a pillar, or in the midst of a field (there is no 
scenery quite so striking as that made by a photographer), 
for the gratification of their vanity and the paying public. 
Then we have the ladies in sitting posture, becomingly at- 
tired, for the gratification of their friends ; and in reclining 
postures, with the bosom in part bared, for the gratification 
of those voluptuously inclined. 

Whether photography or perverted royalty should bear the 
condemnation of this last, let some one tell. 

The ladies are so modest-looking, and so modest in 
speech, that I am inchned myself to believe that an unscru- 
pulous photographer has been foohng with royalty's head 
and a flash actress's body. 

They say the royal sons are passionately devoted to num- 
ber one. When one of them presides over an event, — such 
as breaking ground for some important enterprise, or laying 



84 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

the comer-stone of a public building, — he is given a silver 
spade or trowel to do the work. This trophy belongs to him 
by right of the performance of duty. But he does not have 
it sent around to the house after the ceremony : he shoves it 
into his pocket at once. 

A wide-awake active prince, with a pleasant exterior, 
picks up many a penny in this way, and thus keeps the wolf 
from the door. 

From the top of the omnibus we frequently pass low arch- 
ways, up which we catch a glimpse of business that aston- 
ishes. They are the business lanes or courts of London. 
The width is generally eight feet, sometimes a little more, 
and sometimes a trifle less, I am sorry to say. They are 
paved with flagging, and you enter and leave them through 
an arch. In this narrow, choked way are public-houses, 
book-shops, chemists' shops, and even dry-goods shops ; not 
dingy wholesale places, but bright, showy retail shops. They 
were probably let into the sides of the buildings which form 
the lane centuries ago, before people became progressive, 
and desired to spread ; and they are too valuable now to close 
up. There are a score of such lanes in the city limits, — the 
old city, I mean. And then there are little courts of no pre- 
tension, which seem to sneak along between two buildings, 
and suddenly disappear in the yawning door of a public- 
house ; but, on approaching the door, you see a narrow way 
to the right or left, a sort of forgotten entrance to a back- 
yard, and, pushing through it, — two cannot pass it at once, — 
you are in a bustling street or court devoted to business or 
residences. The immense house of Routledge & Sons, the 
well-known publishers, is in just such a court. 

We occasionally meet a man pushing a cart before him, 
and keeping well in the gutter. He has a pile of sorry-look- 
ing meat before him. Once in a while he stops ; and a boy 
or girl comes to the cart, gets a piece of the meat, pays him 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 85 

a penny or so for it, and retires, and he goes on. I was 
watching him the other day, when I observed him draw up 
before a cat standing on the walk. 

I heard him say, "Well, Kitty, is that you?" and then 
cut off a piece of meat. He held down his unoccupied 
hand, and the cat dropped a penny into it. This freed her 
mouth, and enabled her to take the meat which he now 
passed her. Then he said, " Good-by, Kitty," and trundled 
away ; and the cat stepped into the opposite store. 

I have frequently seen dogs come out to trade with this 
cat-and-dog-meat merchant ; but I never knew one of them 
to bicker about the price. 

What a lesson this is to humanity ! 

Sitting on the top of the omnibus, we find there are sev- 
eral popular institutions missing. We don't see any street 
shade-trees, rarely a hitching-post, still more rarely a street- 
sweeper, and no milkman's rattling cart and cheery bell. 

The milkmen here are called cow-keepers'. That is a 
pretty name ; but they don't keep cows, which rather dims 
the lustre of their escutcheon (whatever that is). They get 
their milk, as we do ours, from outsiders, and carry it around 
in two cans suspended from a yoke carried over the shoul- 
der. That doesn't look as pretty as our four-wheeled, gau- 
dily-painted affairs ; but it suits Londoners, as it doesn't 
deprive them of sleep, and it gives the carrier an expression 
of thoughtfulness (especially when the cans are full) that is 
quite captivating. 

Londoners don't seem to like noises. They have nothing 
but the clocks to apprise them of the working and knocking- 
off hour; no nice cast-iron bell in a cupola, rung by a 
bullet-headed youth ; no nice whistle on the top of a mill. 
They don't like such things, these Londoners don't. But 
they have chimes, — forty of them within the space of a quar- 
ter of a mile, — that not only ring out the hour in a strain that 



S6 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

drives you mad, but sound every blessed quarter in the same 
manner. You don't much mind them through the day, when 
the carts and wagons take off the edge ; but when in the 
stilly night you are on your couch, dreaming that an angel is 
bending over you with a harp in one hand, and a post-office 
appointment in the other, it attracts your attention, and 
seems to disturb the angel. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 8/ 



CHAPTER XII. 



IN THE MILDEW. 



LONDON has several world-known churches. , St. Paul's 
Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, the Temple Church, 
and St. Bartholomew the Greater, are prominent in the num- 
ber. 

Four-fifths of the noted men of the past with whom the 
Atnerican people are acquainted lie buried in London, and 
within a radius of ten miles. Their ashes are glorified on 
tablets of stone, and still flourish in the neighboring vegeta- 
tion. 

As a theatre and sepulchre, Westminster Abbey and the 
Temple Church are the most prominent ; but, as a landscape 
view, St. Paul's Cathedral is the most conspicuous. I should 
like to say that its majestic dome with glowing ball of gold is 
the first indication to the traveller of his approach to the 
wonderful city ; but truth compels me to write that it is a 
man in blue, who demands your ticket. 

St. Paul's is hemmed in by narrow streets, and dingy build- 
ings devoted to commerce. It stands at the head of the 
crowded thoroughfare called Ludgate HiU, where it divides 
the stream of life, which meets again at the other side, and 
forms Cheapside. The diversions are called St. Paul's 
Churchyard ; the one on the right or river side being de- 
voted to the wholesale trade, while the other is given up to 
hosiery, dry-goods, and fried tripe. 



88 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

The building itself is an elaborate example of what Lon- 
don smoke will do. It was built of. a whitish stone, and, 
when erected, must have presented a very fine appearance. 
But the two hundred years which have intervened since that 
time have worked a wonderful transformation. The sides of 
the pillars and other prominences exposed to the steadiest 
wind-quarter are blackened. The surfaces generally are 
alternately black and grayish white ; and the appearance now 
is as if it were a dark building emerging from a coating of 
frost, the blackened portions first receiving the rays of the 
sun. In the cool of early morning this impression is so 
strong as to involuntarily startle the beholder. 

The presence of stone is imposing. Your feet rest upon 
it, without a bright-tinted, pliable carpet to intervene. You 
stretch out your hands, and you grasp it ; you lift up your 
eyes and contemplate it. 

Every thing about the altar, choir, and pulpit, is rich with 
color, and massive in conception. 

In painful contrast are the places of the worshippers. 
Their sittings are beneath the dome, and extending away 
back through the nave to the front-entrance. At the front 
the seats are straight-backed and hard-bottomed chairs. 
Back of these are long wooden benches, of repulsive simpli- 
city. The only advantage of these benches is brought out 
during an especially interesting service, when the humble 
worshipper can use them to elevate himself above those who 
do not care to make themselves so conspicuous. 

These benches are seamed and scarred with the knife of 
the autographic fiend. The bases of the pillars are in many 
cases similarly blasted. 

About on the walls are notices prohibiting people from 
walking about during the service. In an American meeting- 
house no such notice is ever seen. There, when the service 
commences, no one thinks of strolling about the church ; for 
every American meeting-house has a deacon fifty-eight years 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 89 

old, with steel-blue eyes, and a beard like a currycomb, 
alongside of whom the famed Spanish Inquisition tones down 
to a circus-performance. 

The bearing of the Enghshman in his church is most 
respectful. They are a deeply religious people, and in all 
outward forms are not lacking. The Methodists, Baptists, 
Congregationahsts, and all others not of the Church of Eng- 
land, are here called dissenters ; and their places of worship 
are not known as churches, but simply chapels. They are 
not consecrated to God with the forms of the EstabHshed 
Church, and are, in consequence, not considered as being 
strictly holy temples. The dissenters themselves further this 
custom of title by always speaking of their temples as 
chapels. They do not say "going to church," but "going 
to chapel." 

The Englishman, on going into his church, takes off his 
hat ; and everybody who accompanies him is obliged to do 
the same. No one is allowed in their churches at any 
time, during service or of a week-day, with his head covered. 
I have seen the sexton of a country church, at work in the 
churchyard, have occasion to enter the door several times 
within an hour ; and on each occasion he removed his hat. 

The Englishman who is a dissenter is not so particular in 
his chapel when there is no service. 

Lhave been to several services at St. Paul's, and on each 
occasion found policemen in attendance, — in an official 
capacity, of course. It was a novel sight. There was also a 
certain degree of novelty in seeing a congregation waving to 
and fro, coming in and going out during the service, always 
in motion, always animated, always pleasant and cheerful ; 
and then to step out of the church, and find the walks alive 
with smiling people, and the omnibuses and cabs thunder- 
ing over the pavement as if it were a Monday morning or a 
Saturday evening ; and later still, as twilight came, to find 
the saloons in a blaze of light, and men, women, and chil- 
dren in Sunday toggery going in and coming out. 



go ENGLAND FROM A BACK WINDOW. 

Ah ! brazen-faced men, and impudent women, and har- 
dened youth, why do you come and go at the front of the 
saloon? Is there no back-door in England? Is it all in 
America ? 

Forgive the digression. 

We have looked at the bass-reliefs, stared at the paintings 
in the summit of the dome (representing, with poor light, 
scenes in Scripture history), taken in the vista, and had a 
wondering gaze over the inner mass of theological masonry, 
so diiferent from our warm-tinted churches at home ; and 
now we open on the finance. There are a number of ver- 
gers within these pious walls, who, upon the payment of 
admission, conduct the visitor into the crypt, and up the 
winding staircase of cold and gloomy stone to the whisper- 
ing-gallery, bell-tower, and ball. 

It is a sixpence to go down into the crypt. And it is 
cheap. I never before got so much gloom and woe for a 
sixpence. It is a flagged floor and many low arches, lighted 
by gas-jets ; for it is always on exliibition, is this sacred place 
of the dead. They lie all about here. Under nearly every 
bit of flagging are one or more bodies, as the inscriptions on 
it tell. 

Then we pass to an inner crypt, and stand before the sar- 
cophagus containing the remains of Wellington. The ver- 
ger taps a particular block of stone in the side, and monoto- 
nously explains that there lies all that is mortal of the man 
who " basted " Napoleon. One is deeply affected. Beyond 
is the hearse, whose ponderous wheels were made of the 
cannon his noble army captured from the French. Over it 
is the gorgeous black velvet pall which covered it as it 
proceeded on its mournful mission through the streets of 
London. Its tinsel is faded ; and the moths are picnicking 
within its sombre folds, as if there was not an ounce of 
camphor within sixteen thousand miles of the spot. I don't 
mind moths much myself; but my wife always goes for one 
when she sees it. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. QI 

Farther beyond is the sarcophagus of Nelson, the famous 
naval hero, and one of the noblest of England's best. A 
feeling of sadness came over me : it always does when stand- 
ing before any sarcophagus. The most ostentatious whipping 
I ever got was for spelling the second syllable with 2.ff. 

We afterward ascended a staircase of solid stone to the 
first corridor in the dome, which is called the whispering- 
gallery, from the fact, that while it is almost impossible to 
make one hear in hallooing across the space, yet, by putting 
the face to the wall, an ordinary tone of voice will go way 
around the vast space, and appear to be in the wall behind 
the listener wherever he may stand. It is not patented, I 
believe. 

From the whispering-gallery we go straight to the tower, 
which was on our right as we entered the church. This is 
the bell-tower. The other is in a state of chronic scaffold- 
ing. We approach the bell by a series of stone steps start- 
ing from the wall, and sustained only by themselves. There 
is no newel-post : each step depends for position on the rest 
in the wall, and on each other. The verger tells you it is 
just as SQcure as the earth ; but you.can't help preferring the 
earth as you wind up, and think of your business. 

I walked up stairs for about four miles ; then I stopped 
to reflect. I beHeve there are other things to live for ; and 
so I retraced my way, and for a fortnight after felt as if my 
tihghs were stuffed with lead. 

We pass down Ludgate Street, under the bridge of the 
Dover and Chatham Railway, and are in the Fleet. Passing 
through its crowd for a way, we come to what is called 
Temple Bar, which now divides Fleet Street from the Strand, 
but which was once the city gate on the road to Westminster. 
When the Queen goes to the city, she passes through this 
gate, the keys of which are given her in token that the city 
is surrendered to her ; or some other tomfoolery to the same 
effect. 



92 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

It is a gateway without the supporting walls. There is 
the main gate, always choked with teams, and the smaller 
side-arches, used by pedestrians. There are windows above 
the arches, and two effigies of stone in the costume of seven 
hundred years ago. From this gateway, many centuries ago, 
were suspended on poles the heads of those who sacrificed 
themselves to the fury of the reigning parties. 

A head thus exposed for a couple of weeks became so 
damaged by the action of the weather as to rarely be of any 
value to the owner. 

It is all intensely historical about here, and I enjoy riding 
over the ground on an omnibus. Just before we reach 
Temple Bar, and on the right, is a projecting front of a 
building, ornamented with bright colors and gold-leaf. It is 
a hair-dressing saloon. Just under the cornice is the 
announcement that the building was the palace of Henry the 
Eighth and Cardinal Wolsey. There is an archway with a 
ponderous wooden gate ; and passing through this arch 
brings the curious traveller into a region as foreign and 
unexpected as Stonewall Jackson used to be. Here are the 
buildings and squares which go to make up the Xemple, — 
that abode of lawyers and law-students, which corresponds 
to Lincoln's Inn in Chancery Lane, and Gray's Inn off 
Holbom. 

We pass down the alley-way into the open air. Just 
before us is the famous Church of the Knights Templar of 
eight hundred years ago. 

It was the Church of the Templars centuries ago ; but, 
when they were overcome and annihilated, it reverted to the 
crown ; and King James the First gave it to the lawyers, who 
were already occupying the tenemented buildings about it, 
and which they rented from the Templars three hundred 
years before. 

It is a grand church, with beautifully tinted and arched 
ceilings, elaborate clustering pillars, bright colored tiles. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 93 

oaken seats, an exquisite altar, and a grand organ, the choice 
of the Tammany Judge Jeffries. 

Scattered over the floor of what is called the Round, 
being a circular building between the porch and choir, are 
the prostrate effigies of those brave knights, who, eight 
hundred years ago, left Merrie England, lovers' joys, the 
theatre and skittles, to wrest Palestine from the ignoble 
Saracens. 

If I am not mistaken in my history, the reigning king at 
that period cheerfully encouraged this remarkable filibuster- 
ing expedition, as it rid him of some noblemen who were 
rather prejudiced against his tenure of office, and who were 
too sharp for him, and not sufficiently sharp for themselves. 
However this may be, it is just as well they went. Had they 
remained behind, and kept their health long enough, Crom- 
well would have croqueted them. Under each one of these 
effigies repose the remains of a filibuster. I presume — 
although I have no other authority — that each one of these 
effigies is an exact copy of the original, not only in dress 
and accoutrements, but in features. 

They were not remarkable men in height or breadth, but, 
dressed in the present fashion, would have made respectable- 
looking bank-clerks and book-keepers. 

They were like ourselves of to-day in thought, in feeling, 
in hope, in purpose, in ambition ; just like ourselves in every 
respect, excepting the liver. They had good livers. No 
man with a diseased liver would go prancing around Palestine 
with a half-ton of old iron and steel about him. 

They feared death just as we do ; they had the same 
clinging to life that we now have ; although in our heart of 
hearts we do not give them credit for it. 

I never reahzed it before ; but I do now. 

I am standing within a few feet of all that is left of those 
men of whom I have heard since a child, in song, in romance, 
and in history. So long ago is it since they were clothed in 



94 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

flesh, that they have seemed as myths to me, or beings who 
were born to Uve tragically, die tragically, and make enter- 
taining reading for future generations. 

They came back from the Holy Land covered with glory, 
and filled with rheumatism ; and I will wager all I own that 
the glory was frequently forgotten in the rheumatism. 

Just opposite the porch, as I came out of the church, I 
found another arched opening; and, passing through it, I 
came into another court, flagged to the uttermost inch, and 
banked about with a wall of sombre brick tenements. The 
law-students are here also ; and in the middle of the court is 
a pump, and close to it a sewer-opening, and into the opening 
a girl with one eye is pouring a pail of slops. I stop to look 
at her. She is the only one-eyed girl I have seen here. 
But it is surprising the number of one-eyed men who are to 
be found haunting the back-streets and alleys of the city. 

Across in the farther corner is another and a smaller arch. 
I pass through it to a lane, and down the lane a few steps, 
and come to a flagged plaza. Across it a most refreshing 
sight comes to view. There is a little park of turf, gravelled 
walks, and trees ; and in the centre is a right lively fountain, 
filling the air with its grateful spray. Do you recognize that 
fountain, dear reader ? Do you remember the bluff, hearty 
fellow who courted Sam's sister in "Martin Chuzzlewit"? 
and cannot you recall how he and the modest maiden 
watched the play of that fountain in silence, and then 
sought each other's eyes, and read the sweet revelation ? 

I hasten back to Fleet Street, under the impression that it 
has fell through the outer crust which Professor Tyndall 
talks about, bec^iuse, although within a few yards of it, its 
multifarious noises are not heard here. 

I pass through Temple Bar and emerge in the Strand, and 
down the Strand, across Charing Cross, through Whitechapel, 
and under the very window out of which Charles the First 
stepped in full view of a frightened people trying to justify 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 95 

themselves, and submitted to having his royal head chopped 
off.\' Beyond is Westminster Abbey. Black and gray, soot 
and time, have done their work right well; and the frost 
effect is reproduced here, although not so elaborately as at 
St. Paul's. 

There is the customary graveyard about the building; 
only, in this case, the bed is of hard gravel, instead of turf. 
Here and there in the yard, which is more like a common, 
are gravestones let into the surface, and marking the resting- 
place of some one who got as near the famous walls as he 
could, and dropped down where he is, apparently contented. 

When this abbey was built, what are its dimensions and 
cost, I refer the reader to history, &c., for the information." 
If I have got to give the length, width, depth, age, and cost 
of every historical building, I shall give up the trip, and go 
home. 

The interior beauty of this grand structure excels the 
exterior in that it is not marred by smoke ; but it is sadly 
marred by the partition and stalls of wood which choke the 
central pillars. I entered it, on my first visit, at the side- 
entrance, and a service was just commencing. I took a 
seat, and watched the people drop in. All the while the 
service proceeded. The singing and responses were beauti- 
ful when I did not look at the Httle boys in white robes who 
performed them ; but seeing them yawn, and eye the peo- 
ple reproachfully for dragging them out so early in the morn- 
ing, considerably modified my enjoyment. After the service 
the vergers came down from their stalls, and fell to work col- 
lecting admission-fees from those who desired to investigate 
the building. 

But it is hardly to see the building, or its adornment, that 
an American comes to Westminster. The edifice is attrac- 
tive to us as an historical tomb. Within its walls, but princi- 
pally under its floors, are buried the king, the wit, the poet, 
the genius, and the soldier, from Edward the Confessor 



96 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

down to Livingstone the Confoimder. All this wonderful 
pressure of history is right here. There are no branch con- 
cerns. 

There is so much of tragic history surrounding the lives 
of these people, that it takes moments to grasp the fact that 
you are at their very graves, treading where they trod, and 
seeing what their very eyes rested upon. You would fain 
stand there for hours, and panorama before your mind's 
vision all the scenes and incidents which made them famous ; 
but there is the verger going through his monotonous drawl, 
and poking you along farther into the maze. 

That is the great nuisance of sight-seeing here. You are 
rushed about from point to point ; and, from trying to store 
your mind with impressions, you fall to loob'ng out for the 
safety of your legs. You are up to your neck in romance, 
and over your head in history ; and your whole performance 
is a reckless and aimless effort to claw your way out. The 
impressions which you receive are but transitory ; they come 
and go hke a flash : and, after you are bowed out doors, 
you feel as if you had taken a prominent part in a boiler 
explosion, and are just about as clear as to the details. I 
passed by scores of kings and queens and peers entombed, 
I walked over acres of others, and wondered how they could 
be so careless with their dead. I got up from the service 
which I witnessed on entering the building, and found I 
had been sitting on an entire family. 

I was glad when we reached the chapel of Edward the 
Confessor, — that unapproachable fraud of the eleventh cen- 
tury, — because here every thing is so unique and antique, 
that even the verger could not prevent me from noting it. 
It is but a panelled portion of the grand nave of the church, 
and was built by one of the multitudinous Henrys. 

In it is the lofty shrine, the most imposing in the country, 
of Edward, the weakest and most insignificant of England's 
kings. At one side of the chapel, near the entrance, is the 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 97 

tomb of Edward the First, who, being a tall, gaunt chap, was 
appropriately dubbed " Longshanks " by an affectionate 
people. The tomb of Longshanks is remarkably homely; 
but is warm and comfortable inside, I presume. There are 
several sculptures along the walls representing the Confessor 
seeing the Devil dance on some money-casks, having an 
interview with St. John the apostle, and blind people recov- 
ering their sight by washing their eyes in his soapsuds, and 
other equally sensible and important phases ascribed to his 
Hfe. 

But the object of most engrossing interest is the chair in 
which Edward the First was crowned six hundred years ago. 
It is a rough specimen of work, and in America would have 
long ago "made the kettle boil ; " but here it is not only pre- 
served, but used, as every reigning man and woman since 
his time have received their coronation in it. Time has 
destroyed what beauty there ever was to it, and the unsparing 
knife of the autographic demon has been even more aggres- 
sive than the scythe. 

Beneath this emblematical chair is an irregular-shaped 
stone, nearly black, and weighing about fifty pounds, on which 
the ancient kings of Scotland were crowned. It is said to 
be the same stone on which Jacob rested his head when he 
had his wonderful dream ; but, owing to an indulgence in a 
plate of cherries quite late the night before, I was not well 
enough to give that credence to the story which it undoubt- 
edly deserves. 

One very objectionable feature of the abbey management 
is the permission given to bullet-headed young men to make 
copies of the brass effigies on the tombs. This is done by 
covering them with a sheet of white paper, and reproducing 
the impression by rasping over the paper with a smooth bit 
of wood. When you were a boy, you did nearly the same 
thing on a cent, but, I charitably hope, without any idea of 
what it would degenerate into. 



98 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

There were two young men engaged in this devilish work 
while our verger was grinding out the programme. I tried 
to drive them through the opposite wall with a fiery eye, but 
was not successful. I wondered why the verger didn't call 
for an axe, and spht them open from — But he didn't. 

Finally, just as I was about to crawl under one of the 
tombs, out of hearing, a tall Ohioan in the party, equally 
distressed with myself, called out, — 

" Come, young gentlemen, don't you see you are disturb- 
ing people?" 

They looked around. 

" I should think you would know better," he went on to 
say, "than to bring such worJc in a place like this. If the 
sacred and holy associations of this temple, with its illus- 
trious dead, don't soften you, I will." 

They didn't say any thing ; but I saw by their looks that 
they decidedly preferred the illustrious dead as a softener ; 
and the rasping was not resumed in our hearing. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 99 



CHAPTER XIII. 

TREATS OF THE BARS AND BAR-MATOS. 

THE great number and novel appearance of the public- 
houses (or bar-rooms) immediately attract the visitor, 
especially if he is dry. 

They are located, for the greater part, on corners, and are 
quite uniform in appearance, and quite different from other 
places of business. They stand forth boldly, known in day 
by their yellow-panelled fronts, which extend half way up and 
are completed with a single plate of French glass, and by 
their marbleized pilasters ; and at night by the numerous 
gas-jets, which fairly flood the place with light. The panel- 
hng is either of oiled oak, or grained to imitate that color ; 
and the whole front is made as extensive and attractive as 
possible. 

There is no shrinking behind "oysters in every style," 
billiard-saloons, cigar-stores, and green shades. They in- 
variably have two, and in many cases three entrances ; and 
are subdivided accordingly. These compartments are indi- 
cated on the glass of the doors ; viz., public bar, private 
(or luncheon) bar, and jug (or wholesale) bar. 

The bar stands very near the entrances, — with a view, per- 
haps, to discourage lounging by visitors, — and is almost 
uniformly tended by young women. 

This is a novel sight to an American, and makes him 
curious as to the crowd whom these maids serve. 



TOO * ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

Drinking in England is common to all classes. Ale or 
sherry is served at the family dinner and supper ; and, just 
before retiring, the family have their grog. The grog in 
question consists mainly of gin, cold or hot. 

The divine, the hard-headed merchant, the scheming 
lawyer, the industrious farmer, all close the day with grog 
or wine. 

Many of them don't appear to care for the liquor, but 
drink it because it is the national custom ; and no family is 
expected to be without a single liquor, while those whose 
means permit have numerous kinds. 

I have frequently seen rum, gin, brandy, and whiskey, 
with two or three kinds of wine, brought out of an evening 
for a party of four. Accompanying these are the genial 
soda and the soothing seltzer. 

With such a state of society, it follows that the bar-rooms 
should be open and attractive. 

The young women who attend the bars are lady-like ; and 
the people who drink there are, as a general thing, well- 
behaved. Sometimes the former hear something unpleasant ; 
but they are given time, after the day is over, to retire and 
have a good cry. 

The liquors are not displayed in gaudy decanters ; and the 
reason is obvious. They are sold by the measure, and not 
by the glass. Of the alcoholic liquors, there are fourpenny 
and sixpenny's worth. These are the usual drinks. The 
amount called for is drawn from the wood into a measuring 
pot of pewter, and then emptied into the glass. With this 
is served cold or hot water ; and the Englishman, after filling 
up the glass with water, pours the fearfully diluted spirit into 
his stomach. In the lower saloons a " tuppenny- worth " of 
liquor can be bought. 

Whiskey is a modern beverage with them ; for, ten years 
ago, it was but little called for. Now it is much sought 
after. The principal saloon drink is ale, and the next gin. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. Id 

Mixed or fancy drinks are unknown, only as American 
history informs them. 

But an immense quantity of malt liquor is disposed of 
here. It is far superior to the American ales in that it is 
devoid of the bilious-producing ingredients so common to 
those ales. 

Every family has its ale ; so does every workman ; and in 
many branches of business it is part of the contract, that 
the laborer shall have his pint of ale daily. It is served in 
the hospitals and to the charity-children. It is given to 
visitors, and helps forward church convocations. To the 
English it is like water. Water? Why — But I will let 
it go. It is one of the best jokes I ever heard. 

When water becomes as common in England as is ale, the 
finest drainage ever invented will not save the country. 

They drink differently from what we do. Noticeably they 
dilute their liquor until its identity is sunken from sight. 
And, again, it is common to many to purchase a pint of ale 
or a sixpenny worth of gin, and divide it by alternate sips 
with their friends. This is quite common among the labor- 
ing-classes. I have seen a brawny working-man take his 
wife and her mother into the bar, and dip their respective 
noses into the same mug with a freedom that was refreshing 
to the friends of democracy. The man generally helps him- 
self first, which is hardly etiquette ; but self-preservation is 
the first law of nature. There are three kinds of ale, — pale, 
bitter, and mild. The bitter is the favorite, and pint tank- 
ards of it are in popular demand. 

Until midnight these saloons are in full feather. They 
blaze with lighted gas ; and the saloons on the Strand are of 
themselves sufficient to illuminate the entire thoroughfare. 
A ride down that street or Fleet Street between eleven and 
twelve o'clock at night is a constantly-recurring carnival. 
The illuminated theatres discharging their audiences, the 
hosts of lighted carriages, cabs, and omnibuses, the throngs 



I02 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

of gay men and still gayer women, the bright saloons, and 
the many street-lamps, go to make up a scene that fills the 
stranger with surprise and delight. Pouring in and out of 
the saloons is a never-ceasing throng of ladies and gentle- 
men. 

One minute after twelve, and those dazzKng palaces are 
dark and silent. Midnight is the hour by law established 
for closing the saloons, and these English people have an 
unpleasant habit of enforcing their laws. 

This is one reason, perhaps, why Americans do not linger 
in England. 

The multipHcity of young women in the saloons and 
other places of business in England is really marvellous. 
They are the bar-maids, hotel-clerks, drapers' assistants, re- 
freshment-venders, theatre-ushers, &c. 

And thus England has rid itself of the great female suf- 
frage horror by giving its women something to do. 

I know of no place, unless it is San Francisco, which 
makes more of a display of its cigar and tobacco stores than 
London. We can understand it in the former place, where 
everybody smokes, and many chew ; but here in London, 
where you may pass a hundred men on the street with not 
one smoking, the shop display is a phenomenon. The pipe 
is the favorite ; but that is generally smoked indoors. I pre- 
sume the reason Londoners do not smoke more frequently 
on the street is out of regard for the atmosphere, which 
already contains about all the smoke it can stand. 

The prices of cigars are lower here than in America ; but 
the quality is inferior. A twelve-cent cigar is very high- 
priced, and the six-cent weeds are the highest price in gen- 
eral use. In the small villages it is difficult to find a higher 
priced cigar than four cents. Their people do not use 
them, and the transient trade is not sufficient to pay the 
keeping. 

Chewing-tobacco, excepting the plug, cannot be obtained 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. IO3 

in all England. One tobacconist in London tried to smug- 
gle some of it here ; but, our American chewing-tobacco 
being an adulterated article, his whole stock was confiscated. 
He confidently told me there were other ways of amusing 
himself less costly and injurious than smuggling fine-cut 
tobacco into England for the edification of travelling Ameri- 
cans. 

He had a brand manufactured in Baltimore. It was pure 
fine-cut. It was like chewing fiddle-strings. 

There was a man named Phillips staying at my hotel. 
He came from Pennsylvania, and was an inveterate tobacco- 
chewer. Before he left home, an Englishman told him he 
could get tobacco and every thing else in London. He 
didn't bring any tobacco with him, because of this informa- 
tion from an English source. He told me that seasickness 
was a box at the opera in comparison to the agony he 
endured. Had it not been for the prospect of getting 
" solace " in London, he would have jumped overboard, and 
had the company sued by his wife's father. 

When he got here and found no tobacco, his grief was 
terrible. It was like the Danbury bo^'s ball which fell into a 
ditch : it knew no bounds. He haunted the tobacco-stores. 
He paraded the streets like a spectre out of health. He 
chewed bits of cigars, smoking-tobacco, and all the ravel- 
lings out of every pocket in which he had ever carried 
tobacco. He would talk by the hour of the tobacco he had 
seen thrown away because of its being damaged, and dis- 
tinctly remembered having thrown away a paper of tobacco 
himself twenty-two years ago last March. With equal 
clearness he remembered every occasion he had emptied his 
pockets of the tobacco-dust accumulated therein, "and," 
he shrieked in a burst of remorse, " flung it away as if it 
had been so much worthless sand." The point on which he 
dwelt with the most pain was the fact, that, for a period of 
six months, he voluntarily went without tobacco some twelve 



104 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

years ago. He invariably shivered and turned white when 
reverting to it. 

When Schenck, the American minister, returned to Lon- 
don from his journey home for a bride, Phillips went at 
once to his house in the almost hopeless hope of getting a 
chew, — "just one little chew," he said to me. 

But Schenck didn't use the weed; and the poor devil 
came back almost wild with disappointment. The next day 
he returned to America, solemnly promising, that, if Heaven 
spared his life, he would find that Englishman, and kill him. 
And he will keep his word. 

And now we come to shaving. 

It is a little singular, that a city occupied and sustained 
by over three million people cannot afford the luxury of a 
human shave. There are barber-shops, or hair-dressing 
saloons as they are called here, in abundance, and they all 
shave ; but it is evident that shaving is not their " main 
holt." In their signs they bargain to do curHng, cutting, 
and shampooing, but barely a word about shaving. And it 
is just as well they don't brag about it. 

Better, I think. 

My first shave was undergone in a shop on Great Port- 
land Street, in the fashionable West End. I got there so as 
to have a luxurious shave. It was a hair-dresser's shop, with 
a cheerful array of wooden skulls covered by the wrong 
hair. In a back-room I found the barber's assistant, — a lit- 
tle girl : she called him through another ; and he speedily 
emerged, wiping his breakfasting chops on his tonsorial 
apron. I was glad to see that he had thin whiskers, light- 
colored, weak eyes, and a feeble voice. I was glad to see 
such a man, because I had learned from Dickens that there 
were very few of any other kind in England. 

He had been eating his breakfast. All ordinary shop- 
keepers live on the same floor with their places of business, 
and through the glass door can be seen at the proper time 
partaking of the sweat of their brow. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. IO5 

This is not only convenient, but saves the hire of another 
clerk. 

Having wiped his mouth, he bade me take an ordinary 
cane-seat chair in the middle of the room (and the apart- 
ment looked as little like a barber-shop as the garret of a 
hyiDOchondriac), and fell to work in a most mournful manner 
to hunt up the various instruments for the business. 

These found, he spread a napkin over my bolt-upright 
form, and began the shave. I asked him if any one had 
borrowed his regular chair. - He answered mildly in the neg- 
ative. "You don't mean to say," I expostulated, "that you 
shave the myriads which go to make up life in this straight- 
backed, hard-bottomed chair ! " He said he did, and that 
the chair wasn't worried much either. 

I learned from him that the English shave but little, and 
do the most of that themselves. It would not pay him to 
get an American chair. I learned the same story elsewhere 
many times since then ; and I have not yet seen one of the 
barber-chairs so common in America. 

There are cases where an upright stick, with a crosspiece 
at the top, is nailed to the common house chair. As it is 
permanently fastened, the victim's comfort during the shave 
depends very much on his anatomy. Once in a while, I 
dare say, some one gets into the chair who corresponds in 
length and shape to the man for whom it was first arranged ; 
then there is comfort : otherwise the cross-piece is as likely 
to tear his scalp, or injure his spinal cord, as to let him off 
unscathed. 

The shaving went on, in this case, without injury. I sat 
up as long as I could stand it with my mind on the opera- 
tion, and then I peppered him with questions. I asked him 
about his country, and his queen, and his taxes, and his suf- 
ferings, and ehcited from him either a plain negative or 
affirmative to all the questions. Finally he put the razor up, 
pointed to a basin and towel, and stood patiently waiting 



I06 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

my movements. Wondering why he did not clean my face 
himself, I took advantage of the basin and towel. When I 
got through, he said, " Three ha'pence, sir ; " and I under- 
stood by that that the procession was over. If I had asked 
him, he would have arranged my hair, brushing it by ma- 
chinery ; but I was too dumfounded to say any thing, and 
walked mechanically away. 

They do differently in some of the shops, asking you if 
you will have your hair brushed, but not offering to do it 
unless you wish. The general price of a shave is twopence 
(four cents), and fourpence (eight cents) for the brush. 
They do all their brushing by machinery, and after tumbling 
up your hair, and fracturing your scalp, go at it with hand- 
brushes, using the comb sparingly. 

We Americans are a nervous, active people ; and the Eng- 
lish are represented to be slow and methodical. We lounge 
in the barber's chair for a quarter-hour at a time, and make 
the operation of shaving a positive rest and refreshment. 
This reminds me of an incident. An American recently, 
visiting London, asked an English friend for a good barber- 
shop. The Englishman took him to where was a conspicu- 
ous and comforting announcement, — "A good shave for a 
penny." The American went in, took the cane-seat chair, 
and passed through the operation in a sort of inexplicable 
stupor. When he had got through, and had partly collected 
his thoughts, he ventured to ask the barber what he meant 
by going through such an infernal performance. " Well, 
you see," said the barber with exasperating complacency, 
knowing his customer to be an American, " the English peo- 
ple are so fast in their ways, that they never could wait to be 
shaved scientifically, but must sit down and have it over in 
a minute, and be gone again to business." 

" Oh ! " exclaimed the bewildered American as he put 
his hat on wrong, and stumbled out into the street. 

Having enumerated three of the daily amusements in- 
dulged in by the English, I now proceed to the fourth. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. lO/ 

London grasps and holds the talent of England, whether 
we consider literature, drama, or art. It is not to England 
what New York is to America : it is to England what all the 
leading cities of ours combined are to our country. It is 
the repository of English fashion, English literature, English 
law, English art, English amusement. It is the grand focus 
about which every thing bright, brilliant, and attractive 
centres. 

And here the drama makes its debut and earns its success. 
There are scores of theatres devoted to the legitimate drama, 
fashionable opera, and varieties. Drury-lane and Covent- 
garden Theatres are licensed by her Majesty, and controlled 
by her Majesty. The playwrights are her Majesty's ser- 
vants, and the royal troops guard these theatres. At both 
of these the opera in its grandest conception flourishes 
nightly. The Strand abounds with theatres, and scores of 
others are scattered about the great and wonderful city. 

When it is considered that a hundred and sixty thousand 
strangers pour into London daily, some idea of the prepara- 
tion to entertain them can be formed. 

The prices of admission at all the places of amusement 
are graded to meet the wants and desires of all. In a thea- 
tre where the private box costs twenty dollars, admittance 
may be gained for twenty-five cents. The Alhambra, near 
the foot of Regent Street, is the largest theatre in the city. 
As it devotes itself to burlesque operas and the female leg, it 
is the best patronized by respectable people, especially mer- 
chants and professional men. 

To the promenade, which partly encircles the orchestra- 
floor, the admittance is but a shilling of English money \ and 
this promenade is nightly filled with fine-looking men, and 
handsome women of a sociable turn. The admittance to 
the gallery is but a sixpence, and to the private boxes twenty 
dollars. 

The terraces to the old Haymarket, of which you and I 



I08 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

read when we were children, is divided into awkward stalls, 
for which the prices are from sixty-three cents to two dollars. 
This old theatre looks like a Chinese pagoda heavily mort- 
gaged. 

All the theatres are provided with convenient bars, tended 
by young women. 

And these young women who tend bars in England get 
from seventy-five to one hundred and thirty dollars a year 
and their board. 

They rarely found hospitals. 

There is one very disagreeable feature of London theatres, 
and that is charging for the programmes. It is only rarely 
that you come across a place where the programme is free ; 
and the fact is conspicuously advertised. As a general thing, 
the programme costs from four to twenty-five cents. 

There are generally three pieces played, — an introductory 
farce, the main play, and an afterpiece. Some of the places 
commence at a quarter before seven, and many do not close 
until midnight. 

The concert saloons are liberally patronized by both the 
doubtful and undoubted of English society. I have seen at 
these places the rake and prostitute side by side with the 
honest tradesman and his wife and children, all drinking 
beer, and intently watching the stage ; and yet the latter 
heard nothinof to offend them. At the tables will be men 
engaged in discussion, others in smoking, and many drink- 
ing ; and among them move the young women attendants, 
taking orders, and being free from unhealthy familiarities. 

I must confess, I do not understand it. 

Of London it can truly be said, there is license without 
offence, and law without outrage. 

The Cremorne Gardens, of which you have frequently 
heard, are located on the banks of the Thames, about 
two miles below Westminster Abbey and the Houses of 
Parliament. It is a magnificent place, — a garden of turf. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. IO9 

concrete walks, trees, shrubs, bar-rooms, arbors, grottos, 
dancing-hall, theatre, band-stand, promenades, dining-rooms, 
restaurants, parlors, — and all ablaze with gas. Here the law- 
yer, doctor, merchant, statesman, and politician rest from their 
labors ; and here the scarlet woman spins the thread which 
reaches out into every avenue of the greatest city the world 
ever saw, seeking whom it may devour, and quite frequently 
devouring them. 



no ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

MOTH, MILDEW, AND MARTYRS. 

IT is said that the three greatest curiosities in London are 
the Tower, St. Paul's, and Westminster Abbey ; but the 
three in my estimation are the hackmen, costermongers, and 
Spurgeon. 

The second Sunday morning in London I was awakened 
by the paper boys and the sellers of water-cresses and straw- 
berries. Water-cresses are a species of fruit I rarely patron- 
ize. I am afraid of swallowing the pits, and choking to 
death. I don't wish to be understood, by my reference to 
paper boys on this day, that the London dailies issue a Sun- 
day paper ; because they do not. 

They are rather slow concerns, are these London dailies. 
They crowd their advertisers into repulsive Hmits ; they mix 
up their matter without any regard to classification ; they 
publish but a beggarly handful of American news ; they 
report in full the most insignificant speeches ; they don't 
seem to reahze that there is such an attraction as condensed 
news paragraphs ; they issue no Sunday paper, and but one 
or two have a weekly ; they ignore agriculture and science, 
personals and gossip ; they carefully exclude all humor and 
head-Hnes, and come to their readers every week-day a 
sombre and mournful spectacle that is most exasperating to 
behold. ■ 

TheSe papers which are cried about the streets of a Sun- 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. Ill 

day morning are weeklies, and the boys and men who shout 
them are scarcely less gloomy and vague than their wares. 

No living man is able to decipher their meaning, unless he 
sees their stock. The hawkers of water-cresses and fruit are 
equally intemperate in articulation ; and you are always sur- 
prised and grieved, on following them up, to learn that they 
are vending water-cresses and berries, instead of rhinoceroses 
and whippoorwills. 

An omnibus across Westminster Bridge takes you over the 
Thames to that part of the great city where is the Taberna- 
cle, Spurgeon's church. It is a severely plain building, with a 
yard held in by an iron fence at the front. When we arrived, 
omnibuses, cabs, and carriages were depositing their contents 
in front of the doors, while hundreds on foot were surging in 
through the gates. The place directly in front was a solid 
mass of people waiting for the doors to open. And there 
was another mass crowding in by a side-entrance, which we 
joined on the payment of a small fee for the sustenance and 
education of young candidates for the ministry. By this 
dodge (that is, plan) a good seat could be secured without 
discomfort, and the interests of the ministry were considera- 
bly advanced. The thoughtless would call this killing two 
birds with one piece of pavement. We got a seat in one of 
the, galleries, and found ourselves in an oblong building, with 
several tiers of galleries, and a wide spread of floor, capable, 
in all, of seating ten thousand persons. 

Ten thousand people quietly seated, and filled with reli- 
gious emotions and cologne, is a spectacle rarely vouch- 
safed to mortal's gaze. Here they were, spread out before 
me like a sheet of fly-paper on a druggist's show-case ; and 
all the little eccentricities of a congregation, but rarely no- 
ticed in the average gathering, swelled into a volume of 
startling dimensions in this huge audience. 

The change of position, which is but a perceptible rustle 
in the average body of worshippers on the close of a prayer 



112 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

or hymn, here became a rusthng sound, hke the breaking 
away of a great body of water ; and the preparatory cough 
or hawking as the hymn was given out arose from ten thou- 
sand throats, and became magnified into a clap of prolonged 
thunder. 

The man who steps on the end of a footstool and tips it 
up, so that it frightens an entire ordinary audience, was here 
multiplied by thirty with the most cheering success. 

And, when all the ladies took out their handkerchiefs to 
wipe their mouths, it seemed so much like a snow-storm, 
that I had put on my hat, and pulled it down over my eyes, 
before realizing my mistake. The turning of the leaves of 
ten thousand hymn-books need not be described. Any 
imagination enjoying the most moderate health can depict 
the noise without trouble. The nearest thing I can liken it 
to is the rolling and breaking of the surf upon a New- Hamp- 
shire coast. 

When I got across Westminster Bridge again, on my way 
back, I got down in Whitehall, and, passing through the 
archway under the Horse Guards, came out at the lower end 
of the Mall which skirts St. James's Park, passing before the 
grand houses of the Prince of Wales and several noblemen, 
and ending in front of Buckingham Palace, — the town resi- 
dence of the Queen. 

The Mall is a broad avenue of trees. On the right are 
the homes of nobility, and on the left is the park. The 
first building is Carlton Terrace, a tenement for nobility; 
and opposite is the most curious spectacle to be witnessed 
anywhere in the civiHzed world. It is a broad walk, which 
here skirts the park, as smooth and hard as a billiard-ball. 
It is shaded by noble trees, and is beautifully surrounded 
by turf. Just opposite are the French-plate windows and 
French awnings of the nobility tenements. And here on 
this broad walk are rough booths retailing cakes and other 
sweets, and milk fresh from the cow. There is no sell about 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. II3 

this last, as the cow in question is tied to each booth, helping 
itself from a bundle of hay, and preparing for the successful 
development of coming agricultural experiments. Almost 
the entire walk in this section is httered with these booths 
and their refuse ; and what is left from them is occupied by 
their customers, — hungry and aspiring juvennes and serv- 
ants. 

George the Fourth is responsible for this ; and it is in 
illustration of the conservatism of the English. In a freak, 
and when occupying Carlton House, he directed that so 
many poor people should have the right to estabhsh booths 
of this kind on the broad walk opposite, and that the per- 
mission should pass as an inheritance to their heirs for all 
time. Frequent efforts have been made to recover this 
ground to its legitimate use, and wipe out the disgraceful 
excrescence from the beautiful mall, but without success. It 
has passed from generation to generation, and will undoubt- 
edly pass down to the farthest generation, without relief, 
unless some of the successors become less mercenary than 
the present possessors, and take what they can get for theta- 
selves, and let their heirs look out for their own sustenance. 

The houses of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of 
Edinburgh are on the Mall. The royal family live happily, 
I believe. Photographs of the Princess of Wales dancing 
her children on her back are on sale. This is not "put on." 
She is an amiable lady, a devoted wife, and a model mother. 
The English are very fond of her. The Duke of Edinburgh 
wears a striped shirt, and is generally photographed with one 
leg over the back of a chair, which imparts a grace and 
majesty to his person that are quite imposing. 

I was in a crowd in Cheapside the other day when the 
duke and duchess drove by to attend the opening of a new 
school-building, and saw scores of the English run along 
with the carriage, on both sides, and almost put their faces 
into the windows 'in their eagerness to scan the features of 



114 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

their beloved royalty. How different are the Americans ! 
They would have stood on the walk like a row of dummies, 
and never thought to have poked their noses into the car- 
riage-windows. I sometimes think our people will never 
learn good-breeding. The duchess is a girl of seventeen, 
with very re^ cheeks and a ball-room expression ; and he 
is a big fellow, with a coarse mouth and sleepy eyes, but 
good-looking withal, and having a finely cultivated ear for 
profanity. 

Here, also, is Marlborough House, the best-looking of the 
lot. The Duke of Marlborough lives here, and is a man 
deeply interested in mechanics. He offers a number of 
hundred pounds to the man who will fly safely from the 
roof of his house. He wants to get up an excitement, and 
sell sittings in his trees for a guinea each, I fear. But I hope 
he is sincere about it. There was a man here with a flying- 
machine, who contemplated making the experiment; but, 
having descended on his crown from an altitude of five hun- 
dred feet, the fall drove the idea out of his head. 

But here is Buckingham Palace, the home of the best of 
queens. 

The open space before the huge iron fence is of gravel, 
which, night and day, is being crunched under somebody's 
feet. Men with hats which seem to be constantly inviting 
the sun to strike the occupants down, and red coats rather 
crusty in the tails, are patrolling at the gates. It is an im- 
mense building, with no natural beauties between it and the 
fence, excepting an occasional grocer-cart and pair of black 
pants with a red stripe down the leg. But it is a large build- 
ing of brown stone, with a most ample garden back of it, 
enclosed by a wall high enough to suit the most exacting 
coal-dealer. 

That reminds me that they don't cart their coal about in 
loose bulk here, but transport a great deal of their ice that 
way, which they shovel into sidewalk- hatchways ; but their 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. II5 

coal they carry in bags, one hundred pounds to the bag. 
Judas Iscariot carried the bag, you will remember. 

The most attractive object to me about the exterior of 
this four-story slate-roof palace is the coat-of-arms over the 
gateway. It is the English coat-of-arms, — a lion and a uni- 
corn on their hind-legs, squaring oTf at each other. I can't 
tell the number of hours I have remained planted in front 
of that gateway, admiring those figures ; and for nearly an 
hour this Sunday afternoon I stood leaning against the St. 
James fence in a trance of delight. The lion has a smile on 
its face. It is the first lion I ever saw laugh. 

I have seen thousands of these coats-of-arms, but never 
saw a sedate lion : he is always laughing, as if it were the 
funniest joke he ever heard of, — being matched against a 
unicorn with a barber-pole between its eyes. And it is 
absurd, when you come to think of it ; for a hon could whip 
a unicorn around a stump, and have its barber-pole in front 
of a milliner-shop, inside of nine seconds. 

But I like to see a lion look pleased. I think we were 
all intended to be happy. A hon that won't laugh is no 
society for me. As for a unicorn, I am not much that way. 
I enter heartily into the life-sentiment of a lamented friend, 
who, years ago, went to a better home ; which was, " Gol- 
darn a unicorn anyway ! " 

I made my way by omnibus to Smithfield, — a large square 
near to Holborn, and famous the world over as the scene 
of martyrdom. In Fox's " Book of Martyrs " is a picture of 
it ; and while its surface is much changed since the triumphs 
of Bloody Mary, and the buildings reproduced in the sketch 
are gone, yet those which now stand are exact copies 
of them. If one could shut his eyes to the modern mar- 
ket of brick, glass, and iron, which supplanted its famous 
predecessor, he could easily imagine he was moved back 
several centuries, and could almost smell the burning fagots. 
The buildings look just as deserted and gloomy as those 
which once chilled my blood in the print. 



Il6 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

This square has been a slaughter-pen in its time, and has 
witnessed such agony and despair as make the Tower of 
London seem a sort of picnic in comparison. That was the 
period when it was death to construe God's word differently 
than your neighbor did ; when zeal for God's service was 
stronger than it is now, and nobody was happy. They had 
more religion than we of this time have ; but all their genera- 
tions never saw so happy and beautiful a sabbath as this. 
But the burnings are abohshed now, owing to a free press 
and the scarcity of fagots. There is nothing about a coal- 
fire to stimulate fanaticism. 

Right in the corner of the square, where a narrow street 
comes in, and in the first building of the next angle, is what 
is called a Norman archway. It is very old, as the stone 
of which it is composed is broken and blackened. 

It is a tenement-house built exactly over and about this 
arch, both for the purpose of preserving it as a relic, and to 
save the expense of a new arch. Through this arch the 
depth of the building, by the beginning of a wonderfully 
narrow and crooked and quaint way called Cloth Lane, — 
from the fact, that, fifteen or twenty thousand years ago, it 
was occupied by cloth- dealers, — and we have a graveyard of 
about the eighth of an acre, covered with rusty stones, broken 
bottles, and other debris. On two sides of this repository 
of the dead are the rear of tenements, with dirty windows, 
stained walls, and unhealthy-looking people peering through 
the glass. There is not a spear of green grass in the entire 
yard ; but all of it is as black and despondent as the tene- 
ment-walls which have choked it dead. I pass down a 
path between two walls (the one skirting the yard, and the 
other being the side of a warehouse, into which are let nu- 
merous tablets of the dead, who were too late or too proud 
to go into the yard, I thought), and I am at the door of the 
oldest church in London, — famous Bartholomew, just as the 
afternoon service begins. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. II7 

I take my seat with a motley-looking congregation, and 
stare with all my eyes at the astonishing interior. I try to 
fasten my attention upon the service; but between the 
mouldy and crumbling walls, the reflection on the past, and 
a beadle with gold lace on his coat, a gold band on his hat, 
and a pair of active and industrious boots on his feet, I give 
up in despair, and collapse into a sort of stupor, which holds 
me through the service. 

Nearly the whole enjoyment of visiting just such places as 
this is lost through the inability of the beholder to think fast 
enough. 

Here is the relic of a building, which, eight hundred years 
ago, extended to the archway on the square, and that was its 
main entrance. It was a monastery then, echoing to the 
footsteps of solemn monks and their impressive chanting. 
It has rotted away by piecemeal for these many centuries. 
It was hacked and cut by the grim followers of Cromwell ; 
and to-day this remnant, with its miserably broken pillars 
and walls, is continuing the struggle before the eyes of the 
nineteenth century. The floor is broken ; the pillars which 
form the arched roof, and separate the aisles from the nave, 
are worn in places to such a degree as to make one sitting 
near them quite nervous and thoughtful ; the walls are 
musty, gashed, and filled with doorways with no stairs lead- 
ing up to them ; and windows blocked up, and tombs quaint, 
scratched, and mutilated. Back of the pulpit are two or 
three stone coffins, whose occupants, ages ago, removed for 
better ventilation ; and scattered near them are two or three 
tons of stone cornice, or window or door facings, saved from 
the wreck of the main building. 

It is a singular sensation an American experiences upon 
visiting this dirty and broken-winded fabric. " Why isn't it 
torn down at once, and a new building put up in its place ? " 
you ask. Why don't you tear up the body of your great- 
grandfather from its resting-place in the churchyard, and 



Il8 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

put a new body in its place? But perhaps you never 
thought of it. But it can be done. So these people can 
tear down this old church, and erect another; but they 
haven't thought of it. 

When one of our home church-buildings loses a couple of 
shingles from the roof, or a figure out of its carpet, or the 
first tone of its paint, one church-meeting follows another, 
former neighbors cease to exchange greetings and " to bor- 
row a cup of milk until Henry gets back from school " from 
each other, and picnics are given up, and brotherly love 
suspended, until the point is carried, the repair made, and 
a debt incurred. 

But here is a church that for five hundred years has been 
in a condition to get the whole congregation by the ears, 
and to send the entire parish to the Devil ; but the people go 
patiently along, raising a little money in this direction and a 
little in that, and using it as they get it to replace a stone, or 
prop up a pillar ; and the following Sunday they drop gently 
in and sit for an hour on a hard bench, worshipping God 
and admiring the improvements. It will be five hundred 
years more, I imagine, before they get much beyond that ; 
for Time appears to be about as active as they are. 

But there are no painted pews here ; simply hard bench- 
es, and exasperatingly backed chairs. The sittings are not 
stationary, but are competent to be moved about like the 
settees in our Sunday schools. Did you ever fall over one 
of those settees which had been moved without your knowl- 
edge by the "other fellow"? What happy days were 
those ! They will never come again, you know. There is 
no carpet. Blank stone floors^ are what the English delight 
in for their churches. A stone floor is not so sightly or 
comforting as a carpet, but is better adapted for burying 
people beneath. You could plant them under a carpet, I 
suppose ; but it wouldn't be so pleasant, especially in dog- 
days. 



^ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. I IQ 

Some of the churches have floors of party-colored tile, 
which are very pretty, and would answer, perhaps, the natu- 
ral craving in our country for a carpet ; but, with snow on 
the heel of the incoming worshipper, the result would be most 
disastrous to the first half-dozen pews from the door. 



I20 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XV. 



A RAMBLE OVER LONDON. 



THERE is more to see in London than is comprised 
within the philosophy of any compiler of guide-books. 
And " of making many " (guide) " books there is no end." 
Routledge's (English) and Pascoe's (American) are the 
best. But I advise my readers who contemplate visiting 
London to buy all the guide-books they can get hold of. 
Each one contains matters different from what can be found 
in all of the others ; and the first object of the tourist should 
be to sift down the contents of all, and go to work in an 
intelligent manner to see every thing worth being seen in 
the most wonderful city in the world. A thorough ob- 
servation of London and Great Britain gives the observer 
a new interest in history, and confers an additional charm 
upon fiction ; and yet all the guide-books combined fall 
short of the work. The chief dependence of the visitor is 
in prowling around. He should burrow into strange courts, 
and thread all passable streets. He should keep open eyes 
and a ready tongue, and what the former cannot fathom the 
latter should bring to light. The Enghsh are obliging to 
strangers ; and, if a searcher after information does not get 
it, the fault must lie with himself. 

The next numerous volumes are railway-guides. The 
chief is Bradshaw's, much larger than Appleton's, so com- 
mon in America, and costing but twelve cents, or less than 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 121 

one-quarter of the American work. Then there are a num- 
ber much smaller than Bradshavv's, which can be bought for 
two cents each, and even less than that where a party takes 
a barrel of them; but it is rarely a traveller needs that 
quantity. Besides these, the companies themselves issue a 
guide every month or so, — a voluminous work, giving the 
time and stations on their main and branch lines, and sold 
for two cents. These English railway-guides are the very 
essence of all that is maddening ; and there is nothing, un- 
less it is a contrary woman, which will drive a man so deliri- 
ous as these" very guides. They are making people morose 
and discontented, dividing families, and crowding the lunatic- 
asylums. It is no wonder there is so much drinking here. 
A single page of Bradshaw's would break up a nest of hor- 
nets, and drive full two-thirds of them into drunkards' 
graves. 

The very centre of London life is at the junction of the 
several streets in front of the . Bank, Mansion House, and 
Royal Exchange. The Bank is a one-story granite fabric, 
about high enough to sling a five-year-old boy over ; and the 
Royal Exchange is an open court, with statue§, benches, 
conceited and slim-legged clerks, and greasy loungers. The 
Mansion House is the official residence of the lord-mayor ; 
and, of a morning in " the season," his brilliant equipage, 
with scarlet coachmen and scarlet footmen, may be seen 
working through the jam of vehicles which choke up these 
thoroughfares. If his chariot is not in sight, the patient 
waiter is sure to be rewarded by the gorgeous turnout of the 
lord high sheriff, with its purple and gold livery, and pink 
silk stockings, and powdered wigs. To a republican with 
fifteen dollars in his pocket this sight is very enervating. " 

It costs several millions of dollars annually to carry on 
this city government (the expense of the officers merely) ; 
and, when the price is compared witli the municipality, the 
discrepancy is simply ridiculous. The lord-mayor and the 



122 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

lord-sheriff control only that insignificant portion of London 
called " the city," whose hmits are no greater now than 
when Westminster was separated from it by fields, with the 
little village of Charing Cross between. All the brick and 
mortar and pavements adjoining are separate parishes, — with 
the exception of Westminster, which is a city, — and are gov- 
erned by the church-wardens of each parish. The lord- 
mayor has no more to do with them than an Egyptian violin- 
ist has. But it is all called London. 

Opening off from this neighborhood is Cannon Street, 
where stands St. Swithin's Church. In a small recess in this 
church is a small stone, of irregular shape and inoffensive 
appearance. You have passed thousands of just such bits 
of rock as this, and fallen over some of them without feeling 
your bump of reverence elevate itself, unless you happened 
to strike squarely upon it. And yet this recess was built into 
this holy edifice solely to accommodate this stone, and an 
iron grating is over it to protect it from the people. They 
could have taken dovm the grating when I was about. 

Centuries before your grandfather cut his first teeth, this 
stone had graduated in political honors. It stood in the 
middle of the street ; and every crowned monarch was ex- 
pected to strike his sword against it, and proclaim himself 
king. It is the same stone Jack Cade struck with his 
weapon, and delicately insinuated that he was Lord of 
London. There are many people who think Jack Cade 
was a martyr to principle. When I was a boy, I walked five 
miles through a rain-storm to borrow a yellow-covered book 
called "Jack Cade," under the impression that it was a com- 
panion-volume to " Dick Turpin." I have since then had 
my own opinion respecting him, and never miss an oppor- 
tunity, when in the presence of the Cades, to vent that 
opinion with emphasis. It was a large stone in those days : 
but people got to putting their hands on it for the sake of 
its associations ; and it commenced to wear so rapidly, that 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 23 

it was taken up and put here. I rolled up my sleeves, and 
worked my hand through the grating, and touched the 
sacred rock myself, and have felt much better ever since. 
A bootblack who was present, and overheard the conversa- 
tion between myself and friend, rolled up his sleeve also, 
and received the magic contact. He had been stationed 
for two years at this spot, and never knew till now the sacred 
nature of the stone. I am afraid that the money and cloth- 
ing which I have contributed^ to the education of the hea- 
then abroad, in the past ten years, have been misapplied. 

When the Romans occupied London, before the advent 
of our Saviour, this stone was used by them as a standard of 
distances. Watling Street, which is near by, is supposed to 
have been the Roman road which ran across the centre 
of the London of that day, and extended the full length of 
the country. None of us know who ai^e the descendants 
of the ancient Romans ; but all of us know who are not. I 
refer to the road commissioners of the nineteenth century. 

The post-office, just before six p.m., is an object of interest 
to a stranger. At that hour the night-mail closes to the 
usual postage ; but, by paying a penny extra, a letter can be 
posted for it until half-past seven. Twopence will give you 
until nine o'clock to get your letter off; and, with a heavier 
fee, you gain two hours more. I judge by this that the 
night-mail leaves at eleven o'clock ; and instead of keeping 
the bags open to all mail until that time, as is done in Amer- 
ica, they close them to all but the fees after six o'clock, and 
thus add an important item to the post-office revenue. 
At five minutes to six o'clock the rush to the letter-box is 
something remarkable. The crowd is composed mostly of 
clerks, some of whom have bags full of letters ; and, during 
the five minutes in question, the flutter of letters as they go 
into the opening can be plainly heard in the middle of the 
street, if it doesn't look too much like rain. 

Within a few rods of the post-office is Guildhall, the city 



124 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

hall of London ; and a little farther on is Bishopgate Street, 
and Crosby Hall, where Richard the Third held revels. It 
is now a huge restaurant ; and the famous banqueting-room 
accommodates city diners, and the other day accommodated 
me, where I sat for a half-hour wrestling with a chop and a 
plate of cold cauliflower, and speculating on the oak carv- 
ings, where the famous king used to scratch his back when 
he wore a plaster, without doubt, and on the grand stained 
windows, through which he swore at the weather. It is a 
singular fancy converting an historical place into a restau- 
rant ; but a good restaurant and a relic are both sustained by 
the plan, and the heart and stomach are both strengthened. 
In this neighborhood are the taverns where the wits and 
professionals of bygone times held revels, whose walls have 
echoed to the shouts of Johnson, Hook, Shaksp^are, Hood, 
Jerrold, and others whose names we are familiar with, but of 
whose antics we fortunately know little. 

Here Smith the divine thundered his anathemas, and 
Smith the wit ventilated his bon-mots, and Smith the sol- 
dier strode his stride, and Smith the orator burned with 
his eloquence, and Smith the ruler gave forth his law, and 
Smith the poet sang his songs, and Smith the Roman 
statesman displayed his logic, and Smith the Druid chanted 
his dirge. 

It is noticeable, that, when any thing has been going on, 
the Smiths were round. 

There are a host of Londoners who never saw the inside 
of these taverns ; never were inside of the Tower of Lon- 
don, nor St. Paul's Cathedral : but there are a host of those 
who have been' inside of Newgate, which is not far off. The 
Newgate Prison of Jack Sheppard's and Jonathan Wild's 
day is not here. Nearly a hundred years ago. Lord Gor- 
don's mob of " No Popery " rascals fired the old prison to 
release their fellows ; and a new prison has taken its place. 

The prison looks very much like the reservoir on Eagle 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 25 

Street, Albany ; only its walls are blackened by smoke. 
There is a narrow doorway set into the wall, and approached 
by several stone steps, which lets into the office, where sits a 
little old gentleman with as uncompromising -an appearance 
as the jail itself. He is the governor, and should never be 
superseded ; but he would make the most cheerful album 
look sick. A policeman showed me over the prison. I 
don't know as it differs materially from any other jail. The 
court-yard, where the executions take place, and where a scaf- 
fold was now being put in readiness, and taking on its awful 
shape ; the stocks, where the prisoners to be flogged are 
secured while the delicate sensation is being produced ; the 
casts of murderers executed here, taken after the fatal chok- 
ing, and all bearing the impress of it in their nostrils ; the 
irons which Jack Sheppard wore, and which a dry-goods clerk 
could hardly lift ; and the tri-square passage, beneath whose 
flagging lies what is left of those who have suffered death 
here, — were the chief objects of interest. 

I must confess that I am just morbid enough to have lin- 
gered some few minutes in the passage of sepulchre. There 
was a strange interest to me in reading the rudely carved 
initials in the wall over where may have been the head of 
the owners. Immediately after the execution the body is 
brought here, and dropped into a hole beneath one of the 
flags, covered with Hme (as if the poor wretch had not 
been slack enough in his life), topped off with earth, and 
the flagging is replaced ; and, unless some rough but good- 
natured warder cuts his initials on the wall adjoining, the 
place of his disappearance is never known. 

In a brief space of time the body which some fond 
mother has laughingly cuddled in her arms is rotted and 
absorbed, and room made for the next comer. 

A yard enclosed by a huge sombre stone wall separates 
Newgate from the Old Bailey. In through a gate drives the 
prison van daily with its precious freight. An underground 



126 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

passage communicates from the court to the prison. The 
court itself, although much the older building of the two, 
is of the same material and design, and is similar in all its 
outward features. There are several rooms for the holding 
of courts ; but the most interesting .s that for the trial of im- 
portant criminals. In the box where Sheppard, Turpin, and 
Duval figured is a stairway leading to the vaults below, 
where the prisoners remain after being removed from the 
jail, and waiting for their turn up stairs. The first cell is 
that said to have been occupied by Sheppard. The police- 
man who escorted me over the prison tried to make me 
believe that Sheppard lies buried in the lime under the pas- 
sage. 

I told him I had heard the interment was St. Giles-in-the 
Fields ; but he said bodies were not allowed to be removed 
from the prison after execution, and so the housebreaker 
must have been interred here. But Sheppard was not exe- 
cuted at Newgate, but at Tyburn ; and it is not probable his 
body was returned to the prison. Both Sheppard and Tur- 
pin (Palmer) were buried in the yard of St. Giles-in-the- 
Fields, opposite Charing-Cross Hotel ; and are there yet, as 
contented as is possible for men of their temperament to be 

Newgate Street runs parallel with Fleet Street, and slants 
into Holborn. The prisoner was put on his coffin in a cart 
and the procession made up of the condemned, the clergy, 
sheriff, prison-wardens, and hangman. Accompanied by a 
mixed rabble, which rapidly augmented as they proceeded, 
they came out into Holborn, and drew up in front of the 
venerable pile called the Church of St. Sepulchre, where the 
hero received a bouquet of flowers and a spiritual injunc- 
tion, and then proceeded up High Holborn Street to where 
it becomes Oxford Street, through Oxford Street to where is 
now the Oxford-street entrance to Hyde Park, but which 
was then an open common ; and here the execution took 
place. Sixteen-string Jack, in 1774, was the last to receive 



M 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 12/ 

the bouquet from the steps of St. Sepulchre. A plate in 
the stone base of Hyde-park fence, just opposite Beresford 
Hope's house, bears this simple inscription : " Here stood 
Tyburn Gate in 1829." 

I suppose there is no means of knowing the number of 
people who gave up their lives on this spot, both for political 
and society offences. Seventy-five years ago there were 
months when twenty and thirty executions came off, and it 
was not until the commencement of the present century that 
capital punishment was restricted to the greater crimes. As 
late as fifty odd years ago, the laws of England punished the 
theft of five shillings with death. In copies of " The Gentle- 
man's Magazine " published in 1776 are the accounts of the 
execution of young and old for the most trifling misdemean- 
ors. Blacking the face when stealing at night, or even 
defacing Westminster Bridge, was punished by hanging. If 
ever a tree bore evil fruit, it was this gallows-tree at Tyburn. 
But who would think it? Omnibuses, drays, and carriages 
roll over the pavement, and children play and romp and 
shout on the greensward, where so many thousands met 
violent and disgraceful deaths with hearts petrified with 
despair. 

In back of Oxford Street to-day are blocks upon blocks of 
quality residences, owned by certain dukes and earls, and 
rented on a hundred-years' lease to aristocratic tenants at a 
price that makes the English stare by its magnitude, and 
makes us Americans laugh by its insignificance. It is a httle 
singular, that, in this circumscribed and crowded territory, 
property and rents should be less than in broad and roomy 
America. But it is so. Up at St. John's Woods, where the 
west end of the city looks over its back-fences into waving 
fields of grain, a three-story tenement can be hired for two 
hundred dollars a year. Try to do the same with a similar 
dwelling similarly located in New- York City, and the owner 
would inveigle you up on the roof, and throw you off; and 
no jury could be found to blame him. 



128 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

I may have stated before that the principal part of the 
metropolis is owned by some dozen or so powerful noble- 
men, who rent the ground for a land-rent, for a small sum, 
for a period of ninety-nine years, when it reverts back to 
them, with all its improvements. In proportion to the tem- 
tory, there is really but a small amount of freehold property 
in England ; and property becomes somewhat mixed in 
consequence. There are sections where it is rented forever 
at so much a yard or rod per annum, and is owned by 
numerous people. A piece of property is bought in this 
way for a penny a yard. Improvements take place in its 
neighborhood ; and its value so increases, that the holder sells 
it to some one else for twopence a yard ; and the third party 
soon disposes of it to a fourth for another advance ; and so it 
goes, if valuation permits, until it gets into the possession of 
an eighth party. He pays his rent to the seventh, he to the 
sixth, and so on, till it returns to first hands. 

This way of purchasing would hardly become popular in 
our country, and I am glad there is no necessity for it. But 
the English landlord quite frequently shines above ours. In 
this section of London, west of Oxford Street, are several 
very handsome parks, small but beautiful, which are private 
property, belonging to the noblemen owning the property 
about them, and which are for the exclusive use of their 
tenants. These parks are from an acre to three acres in 
extent. 

The English must have grass to play on, and trees to lie 
under, and flowers to smell of. How many times, in going 
out of London by the railways, have I looked down into the 
broken windows of wretched tenements, and found a little 
pot of plants struggling with all its might to get the best of 
its surroundings ! 

And, not content with its great sweep of park-lands in the 
city, it has magnificent retreats and gorgeous temples in the 
suburbs, principally along the Thames. Of a pleasant Sun- 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 29 

day, the little steamers and shore-trains will be crowded with 
visitors ; while those routes leading to Kensal-green Ceme- 
tery, Hampton Heath, Crystal Palace, and other resorts, are 
equally loaded : and yet the enormous city parks do not 
look as if a single soul had gone out of the city. It is 
marvellous where all these people are stowed during the 
week. 

Speaking of the Thames reminds me that it is about time 
I spoke of this great thoroughfare. 

I used to believe the Thames was a silvery stream, and in 
later years came to look upon it as a turbulent stream 
crowded with shipping, lined with docks, with numerous 
bridges of gloomy arches, from which unfortunate people 
have been prompted to plunge, and bury their troubles 
beneath its tragic surface. By the time I had got within 
one hundred and fifty miles of England^ I began to wonder 
what the Thames was really like. 

The river is about the breadth of average rivers. I 
hardly know how else to give its width. Above the city, 
beyond Hammersmith, and along through Windsor, it is a 
pretty stream with delightful shores ; but, within the precincts 
of London, it is a dirty river with a ferocious tide. The 
English, with their well-known love for the beautiful and 
substantial, have made a garden of the west shore, from 
Westminster Bridge to below the Temple by the Thames and 
Victoria Embankments. These embankments are broad 
roadways, raised some ten or fifteen feet above high tide, 
and faced on the water-side with finely-cut blocks of granite. 
Here and there are broad flights of stairs leading down to the 
water, where are neat and pretty piers for the river steamers. 
The roadways are very broad and well paved, and flanked 
with broad walks of immense granite blocks, and lines of 
gas-lamps. The effect in the night from one of the neigh- 
boring bridges is beautiful. Trees also have been added, 
and in time will add a grateful shade to the other attractions 
of the beautiful promenades. 



130 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

A few steps through any of the streets leading from Fleet 
Street, the Strand, or Whitechapel, — all parallel to the 
river, — will bring the pedestrian into a beautiful park, bril- 
liant with blossoming flowers, and radiant with verdure, 
through which he can pass to the embankment. Fancy 
New York sacrificing a quarter of its water-front to parks 
and promenades ! But is London the less valuable for giv- 
ing the humblest of its citizens an opportunity to sniff 
flowers, and peg stones into the water ? Five centuries ago, 
to have completed such a work would not have been re- 
markable ; but in this nervous, growing, struggling age, to see 
commerce sacrificed in such a wholesale way to pleasure is 
something remarkable, and encouraging. 

But the Thames presents some wonderful contrasts. It 
has an extravagant tide. When the tide is full, all the ves- 
sels ride free, and the scene is an active one ; but, when the 
tide is out, you can stand on either of the embankments, and, 
looking across to the other side, see a broad strip of mud- 
bottom along the front of blackened and tumble-down look- 
ing structures, with rickety piers, and sombre-appearing 
vessels standing on their beam-ends, — the most desolate 
sight you ever saw on a river, unless it is a coroner's jury. 
And flanking the embankments are the same mud flats, with 
their covering of tipsy vessels. 

From above VauxhaU Bridge to the Tower of London, 
covering the greater part of the city river-front, the same 
dreary line of mud-bottom, rickety, dingy warehouses, and 
skylarking vessels, may be seen when the tide is out, ex- 
cepting when the beautiful embankments break the line. 
There are no docks like those we have in American ports, 
with drays, barrels of tar, profane boatmen, with stores in the 
background selling oil-cloth pants and coats, fly-blown cakes, 
tarred rope, and suspicious bologna sausages. There is no 
place on the face of the earth where a stranger is so anxious 
and ambitious to get information, and where he stands less 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. I3I 

chance of getting it, than on a dock. But there are no 
docks fronting these warehouses which we see before us. 
They are built on the river-edge ; and, when the tide is in, 
the vessels ride against the buildings, and are unloaded into 
or loaded direct from them. It saves the employment of a 
great many men who hold up their trousers with a strap 
about their waists. 

The river-craft is about as remarkable as any of its 
features. Every thing . is painted black. The steamboats 
which ply on the river, from London Bridge up as far as the 
city reaches, are diminutive vessels devoted to carrying 
passengers only. They are constantly darting here and 
there, and are well patronized. On Sundays they' are 
crowded ; and it is a painful wonder that the proprietors 
have not sufficient enterprise to protect their patrons from 
the glare of the sun. They sit low in the water, have cheap 
^es, and are built to stand a good deal of bumping. Their 
smoke-stacks are jointed, to permit of running under the side- 
arches of the bridges. They are interesting at the first sight ; 
but, as you see no other patterns but these, you soon get 
heartily tired of them. The other vessels are small, awk- 
ward, cumbersome scows, with a single sail, , and a huge 
pair of oars. They are black and dirty, lazy in their move- 
ments, open the full length, and look as if they had been 
carting ink in the bulk for centuries. When the sail cannot 
be used, the long oars are applied. The scows are used for 
bringing freight from the sailing and steam vessels down the 
river, below London Bridge, to the warehouses I have men- 
tioned. They are the most desponding-looking objects I 
ever saw, and what they mostly seem to need is a thunder- 
ing kick behind. 

London Bridge is the oldest and the last bridge down the 
river. It is on the site of the two bridges which have made 
its name a part of history. 

For miles down the river from here is the genuine ship- 



132 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

ping which gives London its commercial standing. The 
presence of tliese huge sailing-vessels and black iron ocean- 
steamships is never suspected by the visitor who confines 
his sight-seeing to the city and that portion of the river be- 
tween London and Vauxliall Bridges ; but there they are, 
hundreds, yea, thousands of them, from every port and chme 
open to traffic in the world. 

But there are no steamboats like ours, — no steamboats 
at all but those little chaps which are constantly flitting to 
and fro. An American steamboat, with its ponderous and 
attractive exterior, and gorgeous saloons and cabins, would 
call out the entire city, and rouse all England, Ireland, Scot- 
land, and Wales. 

The English often speak of them and our ferry-boats, but 
with bated breath. 

You would hardly believe, that, for the miles of city below 
London Bridge, there is no other means of crossing the 
river except by little insignificant row-boats. These English 
can hardly comprehend the New- York ferry-boats, and can- 
not understand why the waters about that city are not 
bridged, and row-boats used. When I have told them that 
there are scores and scores of steam ferry-boats plying be- 
tween New York and opposite cities all^the while, — each 
vessel large enough to swallow five of their river steamboats, 
and pick its teeth with a sixth, — they have gone away mis- 
erable and >vretched. 

There are a great many things these English do not 
understand ; but I think I notice an improvement since my 
arrival. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 33 



CHAPTER XVI. 



THROUGH PETTICOAT LANE. 



IT is a little singular that one of the most reprehensible 
of London's avenues should be its straightest and its 
broadest. Whitechapel is a remarkable street. It runs par- 
allel to the Thames, in the eastern part of London, and is 
supposed to be the Broadway of vice and poverty. I think 
I am safe in placing its width at one hundred and twenty 
feet, while its roadway is scarcely forty feet ; leaving a walk 
on each side of equal width. But merely half of these 
spaces of forty feet each are devoted to pedestrianism, the 
rest being used by the occupiers of the shops opposite for 
the display of their wares. I walked through Whitechapel 
nearly an hour, watching the people, and peering into the 
shops ; and the absence of well-dressed or hurrying people 
finally grew monotonous. It seemed as if I had been trans- 
planted into another country, and among a peculiar people.- 

I didn't see the mark of Cain on their brows ; but the 
stamp of Lazarus was quite apparent on their attire. The 
shops were mostly for the vending of second-hand furni- 
ture and clothing, and were attended by those people who 
never can get their luggage passed through a custom-house 
until after it has been thoroughly searched. 

There were an abundance of men with pants tight in the 
leg, short-tailed coats, round-crown hats, and cravats of 
spotted goods. The lower classes of England are devotedly 



134 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

attached to spotted neckerchiefs, principally of the blue 
ground ; and generally tie them about the neck without 
regard to the position of the collar, even if they are so par- 
ticular as to have a collar on at all. 

Not far above Bishopsgate commences a street well known 
to the London police, whose name is familiar to thousands 
who never saw London. Generations upon generations of 
thieves and vagabonds it has bred and graduated, and bids 
fair to send forth many more generations of the same sort. 

Such a reproach had its name become, that a few years 
ago it was removed, and a new one substituted. It is now 
in the directory, and on the maps, as Middlesex Street ; but 
all the whitewashing in the world will not blot out its old 
tide, — Petticoat Lane. 

Whitechapel is but one of the boundaries of a section 
of which Petticoat Lane is the heart. It is but a lane, 
crooked enough and slimy enough to be a snake. Its 
entrance from Whitechapel is appropriately flanked by two 
low rum-shops, from whose several doors escapes a convivial 
steam that is not in the least inviting. 

I was particularly warned by friends, newspaper-articles, 
and guide-books, not to venture within its precincts, unless 
under the guardianship of a policeman. With a feeling of 
almost hysterical exultation. Englishmen had dwelt upon the 
striking cuteness of English pickpockets ; and Petticoat Lane 
became especially known to me as the place where the 
stranger lost his pocket-handkerchief at one end, and found 
it hanging up for sale at the other. I thought I should like 
to see my handkerchief thus exposed for sale, and intensely 
wondered who would buy it. I didn't think I could afford to. 

It was late in the afternoon when I got into Petticoat 
Lane ; and for full three hours I kept up a ceaseless tramp 
along it, and through the narrow and noisome alleys and 
courts leading out of it. 

There were second-hand shops in abundance, meat-stalls 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 35 

and groceries in every direction. The lane itself had about 
eight feet of roadway, and from a foot to two feet of sidewalk. 

There were bloated women, and one-eyed men, and de- 
formed children, and repulsive dwarfs, among the dirty horde 
who lounged on the walks, or loitered in the street. A strik- 
ing peculiarity of the tenements was their size, but few of 
them exceeding two stories in height. There were no half- 
dozen flights of crazy stairs to climb up or fall down ; no 
fourth, fifth, or sixth story window to topple out of, and injure 
the pavement. 

The houses were of brick, defaced by age and dirt ; and 
the first floors to all of them were either on a level with the 
street, or a foot or so below it. There were an abundance 
of courts and alleys adjoining, and in them the pedestrian 
found much diflficulty in making his way. Some of the 
alleys were so narrow, that four people could not walk through 
them abreast ; and, when their smallness was considered, it 
was really wonderful the amount of stench they contained. 

I found boys and girls here in the full enjoyment of happi- 
ness, and acting dreadfully natural. It brought the tears to 
my eyes to see seventy-five of them helping to raise a kite, to 
the unbounded exasperation of the boy who had hold of the 
string : and, when a half-dozen of them came rushing by me 
with a dead cat attached to a cord, I felt too full to breathe ; 
and I took good care not to breathe until they got by. 

Petticoat Lane is the home of the costermongers whom we 
meet in the more respectable thoroughfares at all hours of 
the day or night. 

The London costermongers are an institution by and in 
themselves : they are generally healthy-looking men. Their 
stock of goods is displayed upon an oblong platform mount- 
ed on a pair of wheels : this they shove before them con- 
formable to the shifting of the channel of trade. They remain 
in one spot, or move about, as is required. Sometimes they 
are on the move for hours without a pause, except to attend 



136 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

to a customer. They do not cry out their wares ; they do 
not come upon the sidewalk. They are to "be found in 
the narrow and crowded thoroughfares, as well as in the more 
retired portions of the city. They fight for right of way 
with the powerful omnibuses and leviathan drays; but I 
never heard of one of them being run over : and, in turn, 
they never run over the drays and omnibuses. They sell 
every thing, but principally fruit and shell-fish. They 
nearly monopohze both of these markets. This is a good 
fruit-year, I should judge ; and that which is sold is similar 
in kind to ours, being cherries, pears, plums, grapes, apricots, 
strawberries, and red raspberries. I believe they have no 
blackberries here ; but the English eat strawberries just as we 
eat cherries, and, between the acts in a play, run out to the 
first costermonger, and buy a paper of them. At the hotels 
and dining-houses strawberries are served with the stems, 
and the guest hulls them himself; or can eat them without 
hulling, if he choose. 

But the costermonger who to-day sells fruit may to-morrow 
sell something else. He watches the market and popular 
taste, and rarely has the same article on sale several days 
in succession. To-day he is selHng fruit ; to-morrow, oysters 
and snails ; the day after, fresh fish ; and the fourth day, 
neckties. It is dreadful to think of. Let us pass on. 

Green apples are a staple article here ; and the little Lon- 
don boys, who have no apple-trees to climb, snap up this fruit 
with greedy haste. The other day I passed one of these 
green-apple stands. An English and an American friend 
were with me. The Englishman, pointing to the stock, said, 
" We use those for tarts : what do you make of them ? " 

" Cholera- morbus," promptly replied the American. 

"Ah ! cholera-morbus, eh? — that's odd," said the English- 
man. 

The costermongers who took up nearly all the available 
space in Petticoat Lane to-day were selling fresh fish and 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 3/ 

shell-fish. The denizens of the neighborhood had undoubt- 
edly cloyed themselves with fruit and neckties, and were 
now revelling in snails and soles. 

Snails are a favorite dish with the English. I have never 
thought there was any thing particular to admire about a 
snail, unless it is speed ; but the EngHsh utilize them in a 
happy way, and have been the ' means of introducing this 
sombre animal into a circle of gayety and dissipation that 
must be a decided innovation upon its past life. The snail 
occupies here the position held by the oyster in America. 
Being of a humbler nature, it is content to sell itself two 
for a cent ; while the more aristocratic oyster holds itself at 
from five to eight cents a head. The enjoyment of eating 
oysters at that price has it drawbacks, and so these people 
eat snails. A novice at opening oysters rarely hankers after 
the practice ; but, at first sight, he would prefer, I think, to 
open an oyster, rather than to open a snail. But the snail 
is much the easier to conquer. The aspirant for its flesh 
adroitly introduces a pin into the front-door of the animal's 
habitation, and it immediately comes out to see what is up. 
It is a fatal move for the snail, unless it should happen to 
have a very bad breath. 

As the English costermonger substitutes snails for our 
oysters, so also does he vend soles, and not shad. Salmon 
and soles are the favorite fish here ; but soles, for delicacy 
and flavor, transcend salmon. It is remarkable how fond the 
English are of soles. 

The several Englishmen returning home on the vessel 
which brought me here frequently conversed with me of the 
glory in store for me when I put my foot on EngHsh soil, 
and was permitted by a kind and indulgent Providence to 
call for a fried sole. I heard so much of the surpassing 
delicacy and flavor of the dish, that I began to fear I should 
catch some new kind of disease, and die, before I reached 
land; but when these people got to following me to my 



138 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

Stateroom at night when I retired, and hallooing through 
the keyhole their praises and anticipations of fried sole, the 
prospect of never seeing the shore again was less frightful 
than would seem possible. 

Fried sole is not a bad dish, after ail ; but any one who 
had been all his life nourished on currycombs would hardly 
find variety enough in fried sole. 

It is the favorite dish at the restaurants, and has delicacy 
enough, for that matter ; but it is simply a paper of pins 
thinly disguised : and when you hear a waiter with a sore 
throat scream down the recesses of an elevator, " One fried 
sole, quick ! " the start you receive tends to prejudice you 
against the fish. 

From this neighborhood radiate the match-peddlers and 
flower-girls, who meet you at the door of the theatre, every 
corner of the street, at the entrance to your cab, and leave 
you only as you disappear in your hotel. 

The wonderful number of men, boys, women, and girls, en- 
gaged about the streets, especially after dark, selling matches, 
surprises a foreigner, until he comes to notice that the Eng- 
lish smoker almost invariably uses a match to light his weed, 
and is not yet educated up to borrowing from the end of 
his neighbor's cigar. 

The matches thus vended are fusees, adapted to burning 
in rain or wind. There are no skunks in this country ; but, 
after you have got a good square pull at a burning fusee, 
you don't miss the skunk. 

The flower-girls are equally numerous with the match- 
peddlers ; but they are rarely seen until after dark. From 
nine o'clock until long after midnight they are on the street, 
soliciting all apparently well-to-do people to make a pur- 
chase. They are of all ages, and a flower-girl of fifty-five 
summers is a common object. Many of them are mothers, 
and carry about with them quiet and subdued infants. I 
have met such as those as late as two o'clock in the morn- 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 139 

ing, praying for the love of God that I would buy one of 
their penny bouquets. The Londoners do not patronize 
them, but, on the contrary, feehngly invite them to "cut 
their stick." They are among the lowest of Petticoat-lane's 
population, and very generally take their earnings for the 
foundation of a magnificent debauch. Many of them are 
the unfortunate recipients of blanks in the lottery of matri- 
mony, and are working out their destiny with a travail of 
soul that I cannot describe, and, if I could, would not be 
understood. But, innocent or vicious. Heaven help them ! 

But it is of a Sunday that Petticoat Lane shines forth in 
its happiest light. At the hour of noon on that day it is the 
busiest. All the shops are the busiest. The costermongers 
fill the roadways ; and those who feel that they have received 
a call to go into business, unaccompanied by sufficient cash 
to rent a store or buy a cart, plank down their stock on the 
narrow strip of pavement which forms the sidewalk, and sing 
out the attractions and advantages of their goods at a lively 
rate. The people in their holiday attire, consisting princi- 
pally of a breastpin, flock about and among the venders, 
bickering about the prices, chaffing each other, and getting 
in everybody's way. I don't understand, really, why this 
neighborhood, so abounding in elements of vice and con- 
tention, is yet so free from disturbances. In my three hours 
among its lanes and courts I saw neither a row nor a police- 
man. Of course, at home, I should not expect to see both 
of them at once. Perhaps it is because the police here are 
so efficient, that their simple reputation is enough, without 
their presence, to keep down the turbulent mass. 

And the simple secret of their success is, that they have 
the full respect and sympathy of all respectable people, and, 
thus backed up, are almost omnipotent in maintaining order. 

It is the custom of our people, on returning from Eng- 
land, to take, as a memento and object of interest, some- 
thing characteristic of the country. 

I think I shall bring home a whole policeman. 



140 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE WONDERFUL ENGLISH R/VILWAYS. 

IT is a long time before an American becomes tired of 
looking at an English railway-car : then he becomes 
very tired of it. They call them carriages here ; and a very 
proper name it is, as they are coach-bodied. In size they 
are one-third shorter and one-third narrower than the Ameri- 
can car, and of rather plain exterior. 

It is a well-known fact that they are divided into class 
compartments. Each car has three or four of these com- 
partments, and all the classes : so the third-class man makes 
just the same speed as does his loftier neighbor who rides 
first-class, and is separated from him by merely an inch-board 
partition. 

The compartments run across the carriage, with entrances 
at the sides of the carriage, or end of the compartment. 
There is a seat on each side, made to hold five persons. 
When ten people have got into a compartment, they just fill 
its seating-capacity, and no one is allowed to enter it. There 
is a window each side of the door, and a glass slide in the 
door. The lamp is in the ceiling, and is supplied and lighted 
from the roof. Consequently, there is no brakeman strad- 
dling the seats before you in a pair of alarmingly frail pants. 

When you are seated, your knees and the knees of the 
party opposite can shake hands without rising. The uphol- 
stering of the coinpartment makes the class. A first-class 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. I4I 

compartment is cushioned with blue-black cloth, and the sit- 
tings are divided by arm-rests. The cushions in the second- 
class are of leather, and there are no arm-rests. The cush- 
ioning of the third-class compartment is performed by 
nature. 

In riding from Derby, the central point in England, to 
London, a distance of one hundred and thirty miles, you pay 
six dollars and a half to sit on a blue-black cloth cushion, 
four dollars and a half to sit on a leather cushion, and two 
dollars and seventy-five cents to sit on a board. 

The mode of heating the compartments is by flat cans of 
hot water. These cans are about thirty inches long, ten in 
breadth, and three in thickness. There are two to each 
compartment ; and, while they do not appear to affect the 
temperature, they are comfortable to the feet. Sometimes 
your companions are hoggish in disposition, and monopolize 
all the can. At other times, especially in the second-class 
compartments, the porters omit to put in the cans at all. 
The third-class passengers ride without them. The English 
thermometer does not indulge in the excesses the American 
thermometer does ; but the cold of England has dampness 
with it, which causes it to penetrate to the innermost recesses 
of the human form divine. The Europeans carry lap-robes 
on their travels in the cold season, and thus manage to keep 
a trifle comfortable. 

The result of this style of car is, that you are obliged to 
take your seat before the car starts, which is not always 
pleasant or convenient, and to remain just there, however 
offensive your companions may be, until the train reaches 
the next station. This confinement to one small space 
makes travelling more wearisome than it is in our country. 

But you never have to give up your seat to a lady ; for, if 
there is no vacant sitting, she is not permitted to enter : and 
there is ho boy with a steam-whistle voice knocking into 
fragments your discourse with the man across the aisle, and 



142 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

poking you back of the ear with a box of books, or fining 
your lap \vith opprobrious candy. 

And it may be well to mention also, in this connection, 
that there is no boy to come along with a glass of ice-water 
when you are sweltering with heat and smothering with dust. 
I came near to forgetting that. 

There is the advantage of a good loaf and smoke, if you 
happen to be alone in the compartment ; which quite fre- 
quently happens by accident, if you have taken the precau- 
tion to " see " the conductor. 

The first-class compartments are not so largely patronized 
as Americans imagine, or as they would be were they in 
vogue in America, where "appearance" is almost every 
thing. They have a saying here, that "none but princes, 
Americans, and fools ride first-class." I don't know any 
thing about princes and fools ; but I can see a delicate appre- 
ciation of the American character in the proverb, that appears 
almost supernatural. 

Tradesmen, the better class pf farmers, tourists, reduced 
gentlemen, and wealthy people fond of economy, patronize 
the second-class ; while the third-class is a mixture of good, 
bad, and indifferent. Many who patronize first-class in 
winter prefer the cool boards of the third-class in mid-sum- 
mer in preference to the dusty cushions and sweaty leather 
of the other class. But I have known a piece of board to 
communicate a great deal of warmth in the summer-time, 
when I was a boy. 

The carriages are not especially attractive in coloring ; but 
they are clean inside, as the English do not chew tobacco. 
They are very fond of the pipe, though ; and each class has 
one or more smoking-apartments, according to the length 
of the train. But you get in and out of them at the stations, 
as there is no other communication with the rest of the train. 
This reminds me that some of the third-class carriages are 
open the whole length, the partitions coming only to the 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 43 

shoulder of the sitter. One of the compartments is devoted 
to smoking ; and the officials are particular to have the lovers 
of the weed get in there, although the smoke sails all over 
the car. 

The luggage system is abominable, to speak mildly. No 
checks are used. The baggage is simply labelled to its des- 
tination, and the passenger is expected to look after it him- 
self. When he changes roads, or arrives at his place, he 
must hurry to the luggage-van and pick out his property. 
To a man with eight trunks there is nothing particularly 
attractive in the scenery he passes through. 

And quite frequently the traveller has some difficulty in 
selecting his trunk, unless it is small and shabby ; in which 
case he can take the first fat one that comes to light, put it 
on a cab, and make off. 

Every precaution is taken here to guard against accident. 
The road-beds are in excellent condition, a perfect code of 
signals is in operation on every line, and active employees 
both guide and guard the traveller. Crossing the line is 
allowed only under the direction of an employee. 

When a train draws up at a station it comes alongside 
of a platform, and the passengers must get out on that side. 

Porters are in attendance to call the name of the station, 
and direct those who are to embark to their carriages : the 
doors are closed, but not often locked, and the train moves 
away. There is no dashing out of the depot-door with a 
mouthful of cake, and a bound into the car, by the dilatory 
passenger. The d. p. sees the train move away without him ; 
and no profanity of his, however sincere, will bring it back. 

The car-doors are not so frequently locked as was the 
custom a short time ago. And a very good rule it was with 
this style of car, as the door swings over the station platform ; 
and, in the case of an express-train, a suddenly-opened door 
as it drove through the station might seriously inconvenience 
any meditative person standing in the way. 



144 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

The railways are not rulers in England. It is a vast busi- 
ness, and their lines cover the country like a web ; but their 
projectors and builders were not permitted to drive them 
where they pleased. 

This accounts, in part, for the great number of tunnels 
piercing the hills. Where the owner of an estate did not 
want his property marred by a gaping cut, the company 
were obliged to go lower down, and burrow under. Another 
cause of the numerous tunnels is the great desire of the 
English to go straight. There are numerous instances where 
roads might have gone two or three miles around a hill, and 
taken in another village ; but they went through the hill in- 
stead, and saved the distance, at an enormous expense. 

They apparently took the the item of distance rather than 
money into consideration, on the start ; and the result shows 
the wisdom of the choice. 

The North-western Road has a viaduct which cost it five 
million dollars to build. It saved fifteen miles by that opera- 
tion, and has got the money back long before this. 

The rail is not allowed to cross the turnpike at a grade 
where it can possibly be helped. The exceptions are at 
stations in flat lands ; and there a gate is kept by the station- 
agent ; and, when a train is nearly due, the turnpike is shut 
off, and not opened until after the train has passed. In the 
large cities the road runs either above the houses, or under 
them. 

When we consider how conservative, old fogyish, and slow 
the English are reputed to be, we are puzzled to understand 
why the speed of their trains is half again greater than the 
trains of the nervous and impatient Americans. And, as 
great as the speed already is, these Englishmen are not satis- 
fied, They are looking about for means to increase it. 

The lowest speed of the English express-train is forty 
miles an hour, the highest sixty miles. 

It is positive wickedness for a man to fool around in front 
of one of those trains in his best suit of clothes. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. I45 

Every road is obliged to run daily a parliamentary or peo- 
ple's train, at one penny a mile. 

The stations (they do not call them depots) are marvels 
of compactness, convenience, and attractiveness. They are 
built of either brick or stone, are commodious, and have an 
abundance of platform-room ; and the platforms are faced 
up with ponderous stone, and surfaced with either concrete 
or flags. There are no uneven planks to catch your toes, or 
scale off and thrust slivers into your broken soles. At all 
the stations there are settees outside for the accommodation 
of those who prefer to wait there. Some people are con- 
vinced that a train will come sooner if they are outside 
looking for it; and this conviction is riever weakened on 
discovering that they have been looking in the wrong 
direction. 

However unimportant the station, the buildings are com- 
plete. I don't knoi^v what an Englishman must think when 
he sees in Am^erica such a depot as that which has for years 
disgraced the Hudson-river Railroad at Yonkers, or that 
which yet disgraces the Erie Road at Niagara Falls ; and 
I am glad that I don't. 

The stations in London are monsters of brick, iron, and 
glass, built similarly to the Union Depot in New-York City. 
That of the Midland Road at St. Pancras, London, is the 
largest station in the world. The fronts of the main stations 
throughout England are used for hotel-purposes; and at 
these stations are lavatories, where, for a penny or two pen- 
nies, the traveller can have a good wash, his clothes brushed, 
and his hair combed. There is no need of dilating on the 
value of this accommodation. 

Although the rails pierce to all parts of England, yet they 
are principally under the control of five companies, — the 
Great Eastern, North-western, Midland, Great Western, and 
Great Southern. The journey from Liverpool to London 
by the North-western Railway gives the traveller a most 



146 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

comprehensive idea of the loveliness of English scenery. 
He will then be first amazed by seeing well-trimmed hedges 
of ha^vthorn along the line instead of broken-down fences, 
and finely-turfed banks instead of sliding gravel and run- 
ning clay. 

Each station has an agent and one or more porters. The 
least important way-stations have two persons in charge ; and 
some way-stations have a ticket-collector with the agent, 
and three to five porters. A station in America would be 
under the control of one who would, in addition, take care 
of the post-ofiice, run the telegraph, and do a good business 
in a mixed line of goods. At a place like Leicester, Cam- 
bridge, or Manchester, the porters are almost without number. 
They are noticed by their uniforms, which consist of a stiff 
flat cap, black vests with alpaca sleeves, corduroy pants, and 
heavy shoes. I have often wondered how a railway porter 
would appear with a coat on. • 

When you have purchased your ticket, and seen to your 
luggage, you either select a car for yourself, or have the 
porter do it for you. Just before the train starts you will 
be asked your destination, with a view to learning if you are 
in the right carriage. At different points on the way you 
will meet with the same interrogation from the porters of 
the stations. If you are to change carriages, you will find 
a porter to meet you at your door, who will take your hand- 
luggage in charge, and pilot you to a compartment in the 
right train. If you have a mind to give him a sixpence for 
the service, it is safe to try it, I beheve. Of course he is 
paid by the company for this work ; but the pay is light, and 
these sixpenny contingencies are inducements to accept the 
place. ^ 

A man got in a compartment with me the other day 
who wore spectacles, and carried a book under his arm, that 
gave him the air of being a canvasser of some sort. He 
had sevea parcels, some quite bulky, which the industrious 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. I47 

porter brought and packed away under the seat for him. 
Then the man in spectacles said "Thank you," and fell to 
humming " God save the Queen," for the edification of the 
porter, without doubt, who did not appear to have a highly- 
cultivated ear. 

Just outside the stations of importance the train draws up, 
and a man in blue uniform comes along and takes up the 
tickets of those who have made their journey. At the other 
stations the train runs in without this halt ; and the agent or 
ticket-collector takes your ticket as you step out of the com- 
partment, or in your egress from the depot. 

The English are a travelling people ; but, with the crowds 
always coming and going, there is complete order. The 
number of porters and police are sure to secure that, how- 
ever great the throng of passengers. And these men are 
always in sight, always within reach. They are not arranged 
in line in front of a neighboring bar, or behind a trunk, read- 
ing a paper, or discussing the last night's caucus at O 'Shanty's. 
Every question is answered as if the man had just arrived, 
and this was the first question he had heard in thirteen 
weeks. You are not stared at when you inquire for infor- 
mation, nor frowned at, nor told to go to hell. I rather 
miss that last. 

And another thing which makes this English travelling 
pleasant is the station restaurant, — commodious, neat, and 
convenient, — where you can get a cup of tea, or a glass of 
ale or gin, a sandwich, bun, or something else, for the same 
price that you pay in the ordinary city restaurant. A tired 
traveller takes a sandwich (four cents), a bun (two cents), 
cup of tea (four cents), glass of ale (four cents), or the 
whole for just one cent less than a single clip of coffee costs 
at the railway restaurant in Stamford, Conn ; and yet flour, 
tea, and ale are no cheaper here. 

Spiers and Pond are the refreshment cephalopod of Eng- 
land, whose arms stretch out in all directions ; the body being 



148 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

the Criterion theatre and cafe near Piccadilly Circus, in Lon- 
don. Every American visitor has seen the name posted 
prominently over the railway and London theatre restaurants 
and bars, and beneath it he has found protection from 
fraud. 

Spiers and Pond are Australians, who made some money 
there, and a few years ago came to England with a body of 
cricketers. These men they displayed for a fee ; and the 
gate receipts enabled them to inaugurate a system of exten- 
sive refreshment, which to-day makes them the kings in the 
business. And no kings have so grateful an empire. They 
employ young women exclusively to tend the bars, paying 
them from one hundred to one hundred and thirty dollars a 
year and their board. A young lady, to qualify for their em- 
ploy, must dress in plain black, and eschew ribbons and 
flowers and ostentatious jewelry. 

They are better paid than other bar-maids. 

You have already heard of the introduction of the Pullman 
cars into England. There are four of the cars, and they are 
run by the Midland Company. 

The four cars stood in the St. Pancras Depot for a month 
or more before being used, and were visited daily by a won- 
dering people. Two of them are drawing-room cars, and 
the others sleepers. These are the first sleeping-cars in use 
in this country. Previously, travellers were compelled to 
nod away in a sitting posture ; and any American who has 
attempted to while away a night in that position is undoubt- 
edly surprised at the progress of the English nation in art, 
science, and finance. 

These two sleeping-cars are the only ones in use in all 
England ; but there is no difficulty in getting a berth. They 
are exclusively patronized by Americans. An Englishman 
has a horror of being pitched into eternity in his under- 
clothes. The English do not yet take kindly to the drawing- 
room cars, either. They like to look through the windows 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 49 

at the rich, warm tints of the upholstery, and to stand on 
the end platforms and try them by springing up and down. 
But they are a little timid. And they don't know who this 
Pullman is. The day will come, I firmly Believe, when the 
American cars will be the only ones in use here. Why they 
have not, years ago, taken the place of the awkward and in- 
convenient carriages now in use, is directly due to the emi- 
nently conservative element in the EngUsh character. 

The people dread changes. 

But the Midland Company has entered the wedge by in- 
troducing the Pullman cars, and by building themselves cars 
to accompany the Pullman train, which are in exterior exact- 
ly similar to our coaches, even to the monitor roofs, but are 
divided inside into compartments, which are approached by 
a side-aisle like that running along a Pullman stateroom. 
The aisle, in time, will come to the centre ; the partitions will 
come down ; and all the passengers will sit looking one way, 
and that in the direction going, instead of one-half riding, 
as they are now obliged, with their backs to the engine. 

There is, in the locomotives, another evidence of this op- 
position to change. They are small, and exceedingly unpre- 
tentious. There is no array of burnished steel and brasses, 
with a curved black walnut cab and French plate windows. 
The engine consists simply of the boiler, smoke-pipe, and 
steam-whistle. Sometimes you imagine it consists entirely 
of the steam-whistle ; but that is only when it blows. I 
always crawl under the seat when I hear it : I can't help it. 
The machinery is below. And as for the cab, there is none. 

If the railway companies of England did not know that it 
was possible to have a house on their locomotives, the 
absence of it could hardly be charged as a lack of human- 
ity; but, with the example of America before them, it is not 
only ridiculous, but inhuman, to leave the engine-driver and 
stoker unprotected from the weather. 

A few years ago they had nothing but the boiler-end in 



150 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

front of them ; but of late a sheet-iron screen has been added, 
behind which they can crouch when the sleet or keen air or 
rain comes too strong. But, when the locomotive is at rest, 
the driver and stoker get the full force of the storm. 

I believe the claim in behalf of this style is, that the driver 
has a better control of the track : in other words, he is not 
lulled into false security by the warmth and comfort of his 
place. But this is nullified by the several severe accidents 
which have occurred through the driver being benumbed by 
the cold. They say, also, that the weather is not so severe 
here as in America. That is so ; but the rain is wet enough 
to soak one to the skin, and there is snow and hail and 
frost. A man doesn't need to be frozen dead to experience 
pain and discomfort. But the sheet-iron fenders, with a 
feeble effort to curl over at the top as if approaching to a 
roof, is a concession to our way ; and the day will come also 
when these locomotives will have cabs, even if they are 
painted all over a dead green as the locomotives themselves 
are. 

The man who is called a conductor in America is a 
"guard " here. The guard sees that the train starts on time, 
and then steps into his van and takes a high seat beneath 
where the roof is raised to accommodate him, and sided with 
glass, that he may see along the top of the train on either 
side of his carriage. All trains running twenty miles or 
more without stopping are provided with a cord stretched 
along the outside of the carriage, over the doors, and mthin 
reach of the passenger. In case of assault, or sudden illness, 
or any other cause requiring a stopping of the train, the 
cord is pulled, and, if in the day, a flag is raised on the 
carriage, or, in the night, a light is shown. The flag or light 
is observed by the guard, the train is stopped, and he, hav- 
ing the location, proceeds to attend to the matter. In the 
van with the guard is the brakeman (a brakeman if the train 
is a long one), who applies the brake to the car which they 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. I5I 

occupy. The brake on the engine with this checks the 
train. There is no brake on any of the passenger-carriages, 
excepting on some of the first-class trains, where the air- 
brake is used. In the case of the shunting (or switching) 
of several passenger-cars, their bringing-up depends on the 
calculation of the driver. 

Our American style of brake can only be introduced here 
upon the advent of the American coaches. 

A short train is managed by the guard alone ; and there is 
no baggage -master, the luggage being taken care of by the 
station agent or porters. 

The guard does not examine or take up the tickets, and 
has no business-communication with the passengers. He 
merely starts the train, and accompanies it to take care of it. 

The wages paid on the railways differ somewhat from 
ours. The guard, or conductor, receives between seven and 
eight dollars a week ; driver, ten and eleven dollars ; fire- 
man, six dollars ; and brakeman, from four to five dollars. 

The stockholders make more money than that. 

The freight-cars, here called goods-carriages, are of the 
size of the passenger-coaches, but are not roofed, being built 
pen-fashion. The goods, when necessary, are protected from 
the weather by oil-cloth covers. 

The stranger notices the names of various business firms 
on the freight-cars, and is puzzled to understand it. These 
cars are private property, belonging to the firms whose names 
they bear, and who find it cheaper to furnish them. 

A few evenings ago, while in a company at a public-house 
in a little Derbyshire village, the conversation turned on rail- 
ways ; and a rakish-looking gentleman of sixty-five years, and 
ferocious memory, asked us if we knew where the first rail- 
way to carry passengers by a steam-engine was located, A 
Manchester gentleman promptly replied, " From Manchester 
to Liverpool." — " Wrong," said the aged and attentive in- 
dividual. " It was from Stockton to Darlington ; " and, look- 



152 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

ing about the company, impressively added, " and anybody 
but a numskull would know it." A sharp discussion between 
the two followed, and a wager was laid to decide the result. 
They were to meet in Manchester a week from that even- 
ing; and looking at me, and seeing the great variety of 
intelligence beaming from my eye, I was unanimously chosen 
umpire. A movement so wise could hardly fail of being an 
omen of success, and I attended full of hope. The rakish 
gent of sixty-five English winters was not on hand ; but the 
Manchester party appeared, followed by two porters reeling 
under a pyramid of oppressive-looking books. The authori- 
ties were consulted, and the Manchester disputant proved 
right. The Stockton and Darlington Road was built in 1825 
for the hauling of coals, and the Manchester and Liverpool 
Road was opened in 1830 for the carrying of passengers. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 53 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

WHICH GIVES A DASH INTO RURAL ENGIAND. 

HISTORY interests us in England's places ; fiction, in 
its ruins ; and report, in its agricultural and social life. 

Having attended the places of note, I yearned for ruins 
and rural life. 

I thought to get into some retired nook, and spend the 
sunshine in quiet lanes and blossoming fields. I went to 
Guilford to take a preparatory look. I found the fields and 
lanes to be all I desired, and the board-bill — to be much 
more than I could afford. 

Fifty dollars a week for two is too much to pay in a quiet 
rural retreat in the midst of a cheap country. 

Then I went to Dorking. I inclined to Dorking because 
of Tony Weller and the Marquis of Granby. I found Dork- 
ing to be twenty odd miles from London, in famous Surrey, 
surrounded by parks and fancy-gardening, with a healthy air, 
no ruins, and fifty dollars a week. 

I backed away from Dorking with a great deal of awe. 

Then a good London friend came to the rescue, and 
packed me off to King's Lynn, in antique, historical, and 
agricultural Norfolk. And here I am, and here I should 
like to stay the rest of my sojourn in Europe. 

It was a mellow twilight when the train drew up to the 
Lynn Station. We had passed through Cambridge and 
much marshy land beyond ; and here we were in the old 



154 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

town, and in a quiet station, feeling around for a 'bus or a 
hearse, and fortunately finding the former. 

We rolled through a quiet street, with walls of dingy brick 
on each side, and built as compactly as if it were a city of a 
million people, with land at a guinea the square inch. We 
passed into another and still narrower street ; and I looked 
for signs of hfe and business, and found but precious little 
of the former, and none whatever of the latter. 

We went on into another street with no change at all. I 
began to think I had missed the 'bus, and got into the other 
vehicle, after all my care. Presendy we ambled on to a paved 
square, across it to a frowning-looking structure, and were 
set down in front of an archway, down whose court shone a 
light from a many-paned window. And this was the Duke's 
Head. 

There was a bustle in the archway on our arrival. The 
boots took our luggage ; a chambermaid appeared, armed 
with a candle ; and then I found a stairway leading direct 
from the paved court up into the building. 

"And such a stairway ! — broad enough for six men to go 
up abreast, and containing an amount of timber sufficient to 
build a man-of-war. It was built of oak, browned by oil and 
age, and its steps so polished by beeswax as to be, beyond 
the carpeting, unsafe to stand upon. Several centuries have 
come and gone since these stairs were erected. The huge 
newel-post and neatly-carved balustrades were made before 
machinery for the work was known or dreamed of: and, 
when I look at what the untutored sons of those dark ages 
performed, I am filled with awe ; then I get over on the 
beeswax and slip and strain myself, and crawl back to the 
carpet, and slope gradually away. 

It is a splendid evidence of the substantial architectural 
ideas of three hundred years ago ; and the only time I can 
restrain my admiration of it is when I find at the bottom 
that I have forgotten something at the top. The house is 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. I55 

full of narrow passages, odd nooks, low ceilings, and capa- 
cious parlors or sitting-rooms. 

When I get tired of roaming about it, I go up the paved 
archway, and into a paved court with low brick stables on 
each side, and watch the hostler clean the traps (carriages). 

There is nothing particularly exciting about cleaning a 
carriage, unless it prevents you from going on a picnic; 
but this hostler is just such a hostler as I have read of. He 
wears leggings, touches his cap when speaking to you, and 
makes a hissing noise with his lips while at work. He 
may miss some particular portion of the vehicle ; but he 
never misses the hiss, but keeps it going without cessation 
throughout the job. 

I have said there was a square in front of the house. It 
is full three acres in extent, and every inch of it is cobbled. 
So are the streets and lanes and courts opening into it. 

Lynn in America is not more cobbled than is this English 
Lynn. 

This is the Tuesday market- square, and on it is the corn 
exchange (all grain is called corn in England). Then there 
is the Saturday market-place, in the shadow of the venerable 
St. Margaret. 

Lynn is built entirely of dingy brick, cobble, and concrete. 
Its streets, with few exceptions; are very narrow, absurd- 
ly crooked, and all cobbled. It boasts of seventeen thou- 
sand inhabitants, but does not cover near the ground of a 
New-England village of half the population. The houses 
are put close together, presenting an unbroken wall at the 
front; and every few rods there is a long, narrow court 
choking with tenements. Every street is paved, and every 
sidewalk flagged. 

High Street is narrow and wayward in its course. The 
roadway is of just such a width ; and, as the foundations of 
the houses are irregular at the front, the sidewalks are varied' 
in their widths, — either spread out full six feet, or squeezed 



156 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

into one foot. In consequence, many of the people are 
crowded off into the roadway, and walk there with their 
backs up. Of a Saturday evening both the roadway and 
walks are thronged with people, with not a team in sight ; 
and the scene is quite picturesque and uncomfortable. 

Lynn looks, with its two and three storied houses, as if it 
had been beaten into the earth with a gigantic mallet. 

Many of the houses have their second stories protruding 
over the walk. That was a very economical way of building 
two hundred years ago, as there was no cost for air, and the 
builder got more room on the second floor than he could 
get from his deed on the first. During a rain-storm the pro- 
tuberances are nice to stand under, and watch somebody 
go by with your umbrella. 

I am rather particular in describing Lynn, but not too 
much so ; for it is a prototype of all English country-towns, 
— close built, as if shrinking from God's sunshine and 
nature's beauties, and as scrupulously paved as if a street 
commissioner were a myth, and not live flesh and blood. I 
have been into a number of English to^vns in the past month, 
and I have noticed no important difference in their architect- 
ural features. 

Men in smock-frocks, corduroy pants, and hobnailed 
shoes, are common, and are to be met with on every street. 
There are also many knee-breeches and stockinged calves. 
I like to see them. 

But Lynn and the country-towns generally differ from 
London in one important aspect. The men are not habitu- 
ated to umbrellas. Every Londoner carries an umbrella, 
and would as soon think of going out without the back of 
his head as without an umbrella. It is his constant compan- 
ion at every step, — on the promenade, at church, the play, at 
the shop, everywhere. He doesn't carry it because he has 
a special fondness for it, or because there is any particular 
virtue in its possession; but he carries it because it is a 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 5/ 

habit ; and he could no more break himself of it than he 
could break from any other habit, unless he should diet him- 
self, and consent to be placed under a physician's care ; 
which he rarely does. He paws over shop-goods with it; 
sticks it into tarts ; and, for all I know to the contrary, 
pokes it into the ribs of his dead friends to see what they 
died of. 

The Lynn man, and the rural man in general, seldom 
carries an umbrella ; but he is partial to a stick. From the 
nobleman down to what is expressively called a " clodhop- 
per," all carry sticks. At a farmer's house I recently visited 
I saw no less than twelve substantial sticks hanging up in 
his hall. They were used by himself; and, in looking over 
them, I was very much struck by a remark he made. 
It was, — 

" I must be having a new stick soon." 

An English town is not so cheerful appearing as an Ameri- 
can town : far from it. There are no wooden buildings ; 
none painted white with green blinds ; no gardens, fruit-trees, 
shrubs, turf, and neatly-painted fence at the front. The resi- 
dences, like the shops, are built close to the walk, are devoid 
of color (except the dingy color of the bricks or cobbles of 
which they are composed), and make no pretence whatever 
to architectural display.. That is reserved for the churches. 
There are a few exceptions to this picture ; but the general 
aspect is depressing to an American. 

In this town of seventeen thousand population one can 
count on his fingers the number of fashionably-dressed ladies 
(as we understand the fashion) to be met on High Street 
any pleasant afternoon. Perhaps the upper classes, the 
gentry or quality, where we should look for the latest fashions 
and the costliest dress, keep themselves secluded. 

Perhaps, again, High Street is so narrow, so dingy, and 
so impoverished as to Sidewalk, that Fashion is afraid to 
stride through it. 



158 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

In the olden time of very warm politics, and in the later 
season of red-hot rehgion, Lynn and 'all Norfolk was up to 
its ears in trouble. Lynn was then a walled city, and in the 
country round about were walled and moated castles. One 
of the gates to Lynn still stands, — a square, pyramidal tower, 
with a nan-ow arch beneath, through which the traffic to the 
populous country beyond passes. Above are several rooms 
where the warder and guards were then stationed, and where 
now numerous doves are providing for future successes in 
agriculture. Here and there are fragments of the old wall, 
built heterogeneously of brick, stone, cobble, and mortar, and 
bidding fair to remain, if left to time, five centuries hence. 

All the churches about here — and, wherever you find a 
cluster of houses, you find a parish and a church — are of 
pretty much the same pattern. They were built by the Catho- 
lics ; are of gray stone, brown-shell car stone, or broken flint. 
The last is used promiscuously with brick in most of the 
structures. The flint is an irregular-shaped stone, about the 
size of your fist when you are not feeling particularly mad, with 
a light-colored surface. When broken, the inside shows a 
steel-blue color that makes a very tasteful facing to a building. 
But, when these old churches were built, the flint-stones were 
put in whole, or, if broken, mixed up with brick, without any 
regard to details, but looking merely for a symmetrical whole. 

The building consists of a high square tower at the front, 
with flat top. Running back from this is the body of the 
building, with very steep roof and Norman windows. 

They are pretty much all alike in outside appearance, the 
only difference being in the number of windows. I should 
judge they were built under one contract, and from one model. 
The walls are plastered ; the ceilings are of oak-timber, plain 
or carved ; and the floors are of flagging. 

Frequently there is a matting ; but generally the flagging 
is bare, the only warming influence 4,o it being the eulogies 
of the dead they cover and keep down. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 59 

We have the dead all over the buildings. There will be 
fathers in the porch, aunts in the aisles, uncles in the tran- 
septs, with cousins and grandmothers under all the seats. 

Many of these churches, although in parishes scarcely num- 
bering forty houses, are over five centuries old. The family 
of the lord or the squire of the neighborhood are assigned to 
near the altar ; and here, on curiously- wrought flagging, are 
the virtuous deeds and characteristics of the deceased set 
forth. 

The English people revere their church-buildings, but more 
especially the windows, doors, and fonts. They have a church 
in Lynn which is called the St. Margaret, — a very large and 
venerable pile. 

Now, you take a thoroughbred churchman, and he will 
spend an entire day with St. Margaret and a sandwich. He 
will stand for an hour in front of one window, and, after he 
has collected his senses, will discourse fervently upon the 
sweep of its arch, the delicacy of its tracery, and the firmness 
of its spandrels. He will walk thirty-two times around a 
font in a sort of ecstatic blind-staggers. I could cut out 
something equally beautiful from a bath brick with a jack- 
knife ; but I shall not do it. 

St. John's Chapel is a dependency of St. Margaret, and 
historically is of no consequence. But a rector of St. John's 
has saved his chapel from oblivion. 

You see the dead were irregularly planted, as must neces- 
sarily follow four hundred years of interment in a two-acre 
lot laid out and inaugurated as the people of that period 
were proud to do, believing, without doubt, that the Almighty 
could have no use for the world after they departed from it, 
and would straightway destroy it. So these different grave- 
stones presented a very much broken front to the eye, from 
whatever direction they were viewed. The rector was dis- 
pleased with that. He said harmony was one of the chief 
objects of life ; and, to produce a little of the chief object, he 



l66 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

pulled up the grave-stones, and set them out in symmetrical 
rows. They look very pretty now ; but, as the signs were 
reset without regard to the location of the parties who had 
been doing business beneath them, the effect is not exactly 
picturesque upon the mind of the survivors. In fact, they 
don't know where to look for their dead, but have to drop 
the sad tear at random. This is unpleasant to the friends, 
and must be somewhat embarrassing to the deceased. But 
one of the objects of Hfe is gained. 

There is another church quite famous : that is St. Nicholas. 

Part of the stones that form the floor to St. Nicholas were 
once set off with brass effigies and epitaphs ; but in Crom- 
well's time much of this metal was torn up and carried away, 
and marks of the violence of those days are to be seen in 
nearly every church in this section. 

The tomb of Robinson Crusoe is in this church. It is 
just inside the south porch, and I had walked over it several 
times before I had discovered it. His faithful companion is 
here too, I should judge ; as the stone reads that Mr. Crusoe 
was buried on Friday. 

The first day that I was in St. Nicholas Church I witnessed 
a wedding. I was not going to stay to it, as it revived too 
many painful recollections ; but Mrs. Bailey was determined 
to remain, as she wanted to see an English service. She said 
that it was much different from the way performed in our 
country, much sweeter and more impressive ; and she must 
remain to see it. 

About three o'clock the next morning I was awakened out 
of a sound sleep by this question : — 

"What do you suppose she paid for that bonnet? " 

The marriage took place pretty much as such events come 
off anywhere. There were the head victims, and four maids 
and " best " men ; also a few immediate friends ; in addi- 
tion, a number of women from the neighborhood, bare- 
headed, bare-armed, and flavored like the back end of a fish- 
market. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. l6l 

When the ceremony was over, I had an illustration of the 
stability of the English house-service. A stranger asked the 
sexton who was being married ; and the sexton said, — 

^' Mrs. Aguinley's cook." 

" Ah ! " grunted the gentleman, and moved away, looking 
indescribably grateful. 

There was no asking who the man was, poor devil ; nor 
her name, poor dear ; nor where they came from ; nor what 
he was engaged in. It was simply, — 

" Mrs. Aguinley's cook." 

And that explained it. Reverse the places. Put the scene 
in America, and have the same question asked, would that 
be the answer? 

Mrs. Aguinley's cook ! 

Which cook ? The one she had last week, or week before 
last, or that sh-e has now? And what is her name, pray? 
But, more particularly, what is his name ? and where does he 
work? 

Ah, dear reader ! this is England, the England of ages ; 
and the woman who was that day led to the altar was Mrs. 
Aguinley's cook, and had been her cook for twenty years, and 
would go back there to be her cook for years and years to 
come, God wilhng. His place may be here to-day, and there 
to-morrow, for he is a mechanic ; but she is here forever. 
And every man, woman, and child knows that Mrs. Aguinley 
has a cook, and being Mrs. Aguinley's cook is to be respec- 
table ; and that's all of it. 

There is one person in Lynn whom the visitor cannot well 
avoid noticing : he is the town-crier. He dresses in a suit 
of blue, and wears a high silk hat with a broad gold band 
about it. There is also gold lace on the ^vristband of his 
coat, and a cord down his trousers-leg. There are three 
weekly papers in Lynn, whose columns are open to, and are 
well patronized by, the sellers and losers of property, holders 
of meetings, &c. ; but yet the town-crier flourishes, and 



1 62 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

keeps his appetite, in spite of the press. Every day or so he 
makes his appearance in the pubUc square, and, after ringing 
his bell to attract the attention of the populace, proceeds to 
thunder out the various notices intrusted to him, very much 
to the edification of the little shopkeeper across the way, the 
hostler of the Woolpack, and three dirty litde girls nursing a 
baby, and numerous flies on the steps of the central orna- 
ment of the square, who are quite frequently his entire audi- 
ence. 

His tones are stentorian ; but he does not look blown. He 
divides his talk by dividing his sentences : this has, I regret 
to say, a tendency to mar the original text. 

To be a market-town is to be a town of some importance. 
The market-day is not, perhaps, so active as were the market- 
days of the time when railways had not made distant places 
easy of access ; but still there is a great deal of significance 
to a market-day in the nineteenth century. That of Saturday 
is a minor institution. It is held in the shadow of St. Mar- 
garet's Church, and consists of numerous booths, presided 
over mostly by women, where are vended hams, beads, tur- 
nips, prayer-books, veal-cutlets, and buttons; also poetry 
and eels. 

The venders belong in Lynn or the neighborhood, and are 
well patronized. Why they should assemble together thus 
once a week for the purpose of trade is a matter I am in- 
tently studying up, but feel hopeless of discovering. 

The Tuesday market consists of booths, as before men- 
tioned, on the square in front of our inn, a grain-market held 
in the corn-exchange building opposite to us, and a cattle- 
market held in a rail-bounded square a few blocks away. 

The material difference between the occupiers of booths 
on Tuesday and those on Saturday is, that the former are 
not residents of Lynn, but are a sort of vegetable and tape 
Bohemians, travelling by wagon or push-cart from market- 
town to market-town. They are well patronized, notwith- 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 163 

Standing Lynn is abundantly supplied with merchants, who 
look upon their gypsy rivals very much as a man would look 
upon a streak of lightning, — something unpleasant, but 
hardly to be averted. 

Monday night they begin to arrive ; and, as the twilight 
sets in, they fall to and put up the frames to their canvas. 
I believe they work all night, as they very well can ; for in 
England, in the summer season, twilight follows daylight 
about ten p.m., and is again succeeded by daylight at two 
A.M. It .is never dark. 

But the cattle-market is the most interesting in Tuesday's 
proceedings. I can walk for an hour at a time through the 
sheep-lanes without weariness. The sheep (and that ani- 
mal predominates here) are no different fr®m the sheep at 
home ; but the people are who attend them. Here are cor- 
duroy clothes, hobnailed shoes, smock-frocks, and little round 
hats in profusion. Here also are striding, red-faced, bluff- 
hearty English farmers, with drab suits, high silk hats, and 
the inevitable and inextinguishable stick. 

Here is the constant " ah ! " and " oy ! " and " unh ! " and 
"whey-whey!" and "aye!" sounded by high and low. 
Here is the "bloody lot" stigmatized, and the "blarsted 
eyes " apostrophized, and the " dirty beggars " threatened. 
But amid all the hurry, discussion, yelping of dogs, and bleat- 
ing of sheep, cannot be distinguished a single oath. I don't 
understand it. It makes me lonesome. 



164 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

BRINGS US TO ENGLISH FARM-LIFE. 

WHEN I broached to a London friend my desire to 
go among the EngHsh farmers, and learn something 
about them, he gravely shook his head. 

"The Enghsh farmer," said he, "is a curious specimen 
of perverse humanity. He is reticent, suspicious, jealous. 
The farming country of England is divided into the large 
estates of noblemen and squires. These estates are subdi- 
vided into farms, and rented out to the men who form a 
most important class in this country. They hold these farms 
by good behavior ; and it is the tenant's ambition to keep his 
place all his life, and bequeath it to his oldest son on his 
death. Many of the present possessors of farms were born 
on them, as their fathers were before them : it is not only 
their home, but their ancestral hall ; and they guard it against 
the advances of rivals with jealous care. Many a man has 
lost his farm through some indiscreet remark made in the 
presence of a neighbor who coveted his place, and lost no 
time in creating an unfavorable impression of him at head- 
quarters. Then, again, as his farm is not his own, but always, 
so to speak, in the market, he is careful to keep the proceeds 
from it a secret ; so that, if he is doing well, no neighbor will 
strive to get his farm by bidding higher, and thus increase 
the price of his rent to retain it. There are other things, 
perhaps, I do not understand, that go to make the English 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 65 

farmer tight-headed : and while I am quite certain none of 
them will treat you disrespectfully, yet I am positive you will 
not get a chance to go over their farms, or mix with their 
households ; and, as far as gaining a knowledge of them is 
concerned, your mission will be fruitless." 

When I got my letters of introduction, and started down 
into Norfolk, I made about as gloomy a procession as ever 
entered that blossoming section of England. I would make 
a strong push for help ; but it was a melancholy resolution. 
One of the letters was to a farmer. I hung about Lynn 
three or four days, just as a boy who has shirked school and 
the chores hovers about the desired but dreaded home- 
stead at night, mustering up courage to present that letter. 
This gave time for the author to get a note down to the farm- 
er in question ; and, the next day after its receipt, the tiller 
of the soil was in Lynn hunting me up, and from that time 
forth the hospitality and kindness which flowed from that 
one letter were simply remarkable. The English are hos- 
pitable to a fault. We found every house open to us, and 
every thing done to make us forget that three thousand miles 
lay between here and home. The contrast between this and 
the picture drawn by the wise Londoner needs no paint to 
bring it out. 

There is this important difference between holding farm- 
property in America and farm-property in England. 

Li the States it is the rul^ to own the farm. The propri- 
etor is thus his own master. If the farm is not a profitable 
one, his sons go West, and start one for themselves : if it is 
profitable, they either run in debt and mortgage it, or go to 
the city to distinguish themselves behind a store-counter. 
If they are not aspiring or dissolute, they take the farm, and 
work it during their generation ; and all the risks their father 
ran as to succession they now incur. If there are several 
sons, they cannot with their families exist on this single farm ; 
and in this case there is a split up of either the farm or the 



1 66 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

family, and quite frequently of both. In the exceptional 
case of a rented farm, the tenant, being a true American, 
stays on the farm as long as it will pay, or until he sees 
another in reach that will pay better, which he at once takes. 
He educates his boys to a profession, so that they shall not 
have to work as he does ; and farming runs out of the family 
upon his death. With the English farmer, the farm is alto- 
gether an inheritance from his father ; that is, the lease of 
it. His ancestors are buried in the little village churchyard, 
and he has a pardonable anxiety to have his bones rest with 
them. The English farmer is just as shrewd and as sharp 
as his Yankee brother; but he is far more conservative. 
The love of home is so woven into his nature as to be a 
part of it ; and the family homestead, although merely his by 
sufferance, is sacred in his eyes. To the oldest son goes 
the farm, and he, in turn, gives it to his oldest son ; and 
while. shops and mills and offices are filled, still the farm is 
kept in the family from generation to generation. This 
explains why the vast estates of noblemen have remained in 
the one family since the day of the Conqueror, and are 
nearly as intact to-day as when that Norman pirate awarded 
them to his clamorous rabble. The oldest son takes the 
homestead ; and the others, if there be no surplus to give 
them a start in Ufe, start themselves, or work for their 
brother. I am aware that much can be said against this 
pecuhar division of property ; but there is this much in its 
favor, — the place is kept in the family, and reaches that per- 
fection which age invariably brings to one management. 
The man who has been accustomed from infancy to one 
arrangement of rooms and adornment rarely cares to make 
a change. A repair is made here and there, as time requires : 
but the landlord is seldom petitioned to pull down the old 
house, and erect a more modern one in its place ; and, if 
he incurs the expense without solicitation, it is an event 
which has no parallel. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 6/ 

This generation lives in the same rooms the generation 
before them occupied ; and that generation used pretty much 
the same furniture, and had before them the same walls, 
which their fathers and mothers used and looked upon. So 
we find to-day in the farmhouses crooked passages, low 
ceilings, brick floors, yawning fireplaces, minute panes of 
glass, latticed windows, huge door-knockers, and monstrous 
four-poster beds, which serve the people who contributed to 
the revenue of the Virgin Queen. There is the kitchen in a 
Norfolk farmhouse, which I shall always remember, and 
which it seems I could never tire of looking at. The floor 
was of bright-red tile, and worn into hollows by the feet of 
generations of the present occupant's family. The fire- 
place was a marvel of width, and made the kitchen look as 
if it were laughing from ear to ear. The andirons which 
stood in it had almost enough material in them to make an 
iron fence. The huge mantel above seemed to need all its 
strength to hold the shining brass candlesticks. Ropes of 
onions and various articles hung from the whitewashed 
beams which formed the ceiHng. The windows were as 
broad as they were high, with recesses almost roomy enough 
to accommodate a caucus of reformers. The chairs were of 
oak, straight in the legs and back, with one quaintly canned, 
so as to press pomegranates, angelic skulls, and acorns into 
your spine as you leaned back in it ; and when the table 
was set in the middle for lunch, with a huge round of cold 
beef in the centre, supported by a fat-bellied pitcher of 
foaming ale, the advance and glories of the nineteenth 
century sank out of sight and memory. 

But they needed the deep window-recesses and broad 
benches in those days to have courted in. There were then 
no mohair sofas, with spiral springs running up through to 
hold you on ; and, if our ancestors had depended strictly on 
the stiff ungainly chairs for their wooing, this world of ours 
would to-day be for rent. 



1 68 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

The Norfolk parish where I spent so many pleasant days 
is called West Winch. It is less than a dozen miles from 
Lynn, and is owned by Lord Clare. There are about twenty- 
five farmhouses in the parish. The Cambridge turnpike 
runs through the place, and on the turnpike 'is the parish 
church and churchyard. The church is of rubble-work of 
course, and is five hundred years old. It is supposed to be 
the site of a Roman burial-place, from the reUcs of tombs 
which the sexton's spade has brought to light. Noticeably 
among these evidences is a stone coffin. There are but few 
of the old English parish churches that have not one or 
more stone coffins. They are hollowed from an oblong 
block of stone, broad at the head, and narrow at the foot, 
and have a stone slab of the same shape for a cover. When 
sealed up for the funeral, one of them would weigh about a 
half-ton ; and to be a pall-bearer in those days must have 
been a most gloomy and sombre undertaking. Adjoining 
the church is the parsonage, the venerable occupant of 
which has been here thirty years, and will remain till 
" called up higher." He has a pretty home, embowered in 
ivy, and guarded on every side by flaming roses. Opposite 
is a public-house ; and along the road about a mile, where 
was once a flourishing market-town, but is now a cluster of a 
half-dozen houses, are two more public-houses ; and, as they 
sefl nothing but liquors, I don't understand how they make 
out to support themselves. 

About a quarter-mile off from the road is a common of 
two hundred acres ; and along this common, with a lane 
ingress and egress, live the bulk of the inhabitants of West 
Winch, being farmers. Each farmer has the privilege of 
pasturing so many cows, hogs, and horses on this common. 
Once or twice a year, at about three o'clock in the morning, 
the farmer is awakened from a refreshing sleep (which only 
those who till the soil and edit newspapers enjoy) by the 
cry of the " common driver," who, having been born after 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 69 

Lindley Murray's death, shouts in stentorian tones, "Wake 
up ! the common's to be drove ! " The farmer jumps out 
of bed and into his clothes, and in the dim hght of morning 
watches the drivers get together the cattle. They are then 
counted ; and, if it is found that he has more than his share 
on the pasture, that farmer wishes he had died years before 
his birth. His extra stock is confiscated, and he is shut out 
from the privilege of the pasturage. 

My friend has two hundred acres which he farms. He 
has the most of it in wheat. It is a singular feature of this 
climate, that, while their grain is up above ground when the 
soil of New England has hardly escaped from the fetters of 
frost, yet the harvest is no earlier than ours. He cut his 
grass the first of July, and his grain the middle of August. 
He has four men and two boys in his employ. They are the 
farm-laborers you hear so much about through Mr. Arch and 
other agitators. I am not qualified to carry on a discussion 
of the English farm-labor question. There is much to be 
said on both sides, perhaps, which is not heard. They have 
agricultural lock-outs here, where the laborers of a section, 
in answer to a behest from their union, make a strike for 
increased pay, do not get it, and are shut out from work. 
Much destitution naturally follows ; but then they are in a 
great measure compensated by processions, flags, bands of 
music, speeches, and beautifully-framed resolutions. All of 
us can get along well enough without bread and clothes, and' 
might, possibly, put in a few more weeks on this globe with- 
out processions, flags, and music ; but we couldn't exist four- 
teen minutes in the absence of speeches and resolutions. 

The farm-laborer here dresses in corduroy pants, wearing 
an over-shirt of coarse white stuff, which reaches nearly to his 
knees. It is called a smock-frock. He is further adorned 
with a coarse wool hat having a low, round crown (of the 
shape of a boil), and a narrow brim rolling up at the sides, 
and a pair of very heavy shoes, whose hobnails leave a dis- 



170 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

tinot mark in soft earth and the dust of the road. Pictures 
a hundred years old give this same costume, excepting that 
the corduroy trousers reached only to the knees then, and 
were finished with black or gray stockings. The stockinged 
legs are occasionally seen now, but are not common. As a 
sort of homage to that fashion, the laborer of to-day ties "a 
red string about his pants-leg just below the knee. I asked 
a gentleman why they did it ; but he could not explain. I 
said I didn't see any sense in it ; and he dryly added, that 
perhaps the wearers of the red string didn't see any sense in 
our wearing two buttons on the back of our coats. However, 
we wore them. This soothed my curiosity. 

The laborers support themselves, and pay their own rent, 
living in httle plain stone cottages near to the farms, — cot- 
tages which the lord of the manor has erected for their ac- 
commodation. The wages which they aspire to, and which 
in some sections is paid, is three dollars and three-quarters a 
week. In some places they work for only two dollars and 
a quarter a week. In busy times, the wife and those of the 
children old enough go into the field. Some of the farm- 
laborers, with an income of less than three dollars a week, 
support a family of four or five. Awful, isn't it ? But, dear 
reader, do you remember, that, before our late unhappy war, 
common laborers in America received but six dollars a week ? 
I knew of one who had six children, making a family of 
eight, who succeeded in keeping out of debt on six dollars 
a week ; and in those times he paid more for his clothing 
than the English farm-laborer pays, and it wore him a less 
time. It is not extraordinary for a pair of English shoes to 
last over two years, and a pair of corduroy pants to wear five 
years. The latter can be bought for less than two dollars. 
I do not wish to defend the system of wages in England, 
neither do I desire to drive the poor and helpless into cordu- 
roy breeches. I think the farmers ought to pay their help 
all they can ; and I hesitate to attack them, for fear they 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. I /I 

do. It is said (and it must be so, as I have the word of 
several London gentlemen) that many of the farm-laborers 
never touch a mouthful of meat from one year's end to an- 
other. But they get along very well without it. I have seen 
hundreds of them and their famihes ; and a redder-faced, 
brighter-eyed lot of people I never saw, even in a hotel 
where there is an abundance of meat. I honestly advise all 
farm-laborers to steer clear of meat in the future, if they 
value their health. 

They have roses on the walls of their cottages, of course ; 
they smoke (and are even beginning to chew), and they 
have their beer. If they prefer beer to beef, whose business 
is it ? Their rents are not so high as the American farm- 
laborer, who lives by himself. Twenty dollars a year is the 
highest, I beheve. There are places where the benevolent 
wealthy have erected model cottages at a still less rent. On 
the estate of the Prince of Wales at Sandringham there are 
quite a number of these cottages, built of stone, with peaked 
roofs, containing four or five rooms, with a bit of garden 
attached. The rent is fifteen dollars per annum. They are 
neat places, well ventilated, and free from hghtning-rods. 
In fact, there are precious few lightning-rods in all England ; 
which is remarkable, considering the English people's dread 
of a thunder-storm, of which they are always careful to speak 
in the most respectful terms, calling it a "tempest." 



172 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XX. 



MORE ABOUT THE FARM. 



IN discussing the relative wages of American and English 
laborers and mechanics, it is well to take into considera- 
tion the sort of equivalent their labor furnishes for those 
wages. I contend that the American works the harder of 
the two. If he is on a farm, he must be up and at work, 
choring around, at five o'clock ; and he has but little relief 
until eight or nine o'clock in the evening. He boards with 
the farmer, who sends him to bed when there is nothing 
more to do, and drags him out again as soon as it is light 
enough to see the shortest way into his clothes. And during 
the day he works with a will, spurred up, not by beer, but 
by an Egyptian taskmaster, who works hke a maniac him- 
self, and can't be made to understand why everybody else 
should not do the same. I haVe been there myself, gentle 
reader. If he is a mechanic, and doesn't attend to his busi- 
ness, and do a reasonable amount of work in the time, he is 
discharged. 

The English farm-laborer gets to work not earlier than six 
o'clock, has his breakfast at eight, dinner at one, and knocks 
off at six. In most of the farm-villages there is a piece of 
land divided up into what are called allotments, and each 
laborer can have an allotment (about a rood) to cultivate 
for himself by the payment of from one dollar and a quarter 
to two dollars and a half a year. After his work at night, he 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 73 

can devote his time to this plot of ground ; and this charity 
has two objects, — to contribute to the sustenance of the 
laborer, and to cultivate a spirit of industry, saving him from 
the idleness and expense of the public-house. The smallest 
of parishes has its public-house, with a quiet and cosey little 
bar-parlor and inviting publican (proprietor) to wheedle 
the pennies and minutes from the cottager. We wish these 
charities all success ; but pubhcans and sinners are traditional 
companions. 

The English farmer does but little work himself, aside from 
riding about, going to market, and looking after his stock : 
consequently the laborer, in the absence of this stimulating 
example, is inclined to establish his own pace. It is not a 
violently swift one. One farmer assured me that his men 
were then getting to work at eight o'clock in the morning, 
and quitting at three in the afternoon. 

As for the mechanics, they have still less hours, and a 
half-day on Saturday. They don't appear to be impairing 
their constitutions with hard work. Right opposite is a build- 
ing of stone, fifteen by twenty-two, going up. The first stone 
was laid about five weeks ago, and three men have been em- 
ployed on it every day since. They have got the first floor 
done. A Scotch friend dryly observes, that, if English me- 
chanics had had the supreme charge of the Tower of Babel, 
it is quite probable there would have been but one language 
to this day. 

I have had many talks with these farm-laborers about 
America. They like to converse upon that country ; but they 
don't seem to be itching all over to go there. Several letters 
from Enghshmen now in the States looking about for an El 
Dorado have been published in the vicinity papers. These 
accounts are most discouraging to English emigration, and 
through them breathes a fervent prayer to get back to Old 
England. 

An intelligent-looking laborer came up to me while I stood 



174 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

at a little station talking with some friends and waiting for 
the train, and said, "You don't advise a laborer to go to 
America, do you, sir?" 

"Not if he is doing well here," I answered. 

"That's the way my brother Joe talks," he said. "He's 
been in America two years, and he writes to say that I had 
better stay in England as long as I can get enough to do to 
make my bread." 

The rent of a farm for this section is about seven dollars 
per acre ;. the road, poor and church rates, and taxes, are 
about fiye dollars more : making, in all, twelve dollars per 
acre per annum. All grain is here called corn, and is sown in 
drills, and hoed like potatoes and maize, the weeds cut down, 
and the earth loosened. I once made an item to the effect 
that a Texas farmer was hoeing his buckwheat for the second 
time. It was a very good joke ; but the English papers did 
not copy it. The chief weeds with which the English farmer 
has to contend are thistles and poppies. • There is nothing 
remarkable about thistles, unless you are barefooted ; but the 
idea of a poppy being a weed is striking enough. You know 
how choice we are of them in our gardens at home, and what 
an addition to a plot are a half-dozen of these brilliantly- 
flowering plants. Try, then, to conjure up thousands of 
them in one enclosure. They are called " red weed " in 
England. They flourish principally in the grain-fields, where 
their deep red contrasts magnificently with the dark green 
of the wheat and barley and oats. I have seen fields so 
abounding with poppies, that they looked as though they were 
splotched with blood. I have seen great beds of them spring- 
ing from newly-turned earth along the railways, and their 
beauty I never saw equalled in nature. Surely Solomon in 
all his glory was not arrayed like unto these ; nor smelt like 
them, I hope. 

Rearing their scarlet heads among the dark-green grain, 
they present a picture that must touch every heart, although 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1/5 

differently. I have seen two men stand at a fence on oppo- 
site sides of a field, and gaze for a half-hour at the wonderful 
blending of color. The one was speechless, his eyes glisten- 
ing with the most exquisite dehght : he was a tourist. The 
other was speechless also ; but his eyes did not glisten : he 
was the owner of the field. 

Rural England is like rural America in that it possesses 
the same geological and natural features. We lack the neat- 
ness and tidiness which centuries of teaching and practice 
have established about these rural homes and lands, and that 
solidity which age has impressed upon this country, and which 
you always notice, and never tire of We have the same 
gravel, with the same qualities for removing skin from that 
portion of the human frame coming in violent contact with 
it, the same lumpy dirt in the gardens, the same trees, shrubs, 
vegetables, grain, and fruit, as do they. To look over into 
an English garden is like looking into an American garden. 
Those products which are not here, or are here and not at 
home, are so few as not to be noticeable to the casual ob- 
server. 

There are cabbages, and pea-vines curling about pea-brush 
(the roots turning bilious at the progress of the tops), and 
lettuce, and pie-plant (under which a rubber ball rolls, and is 
not discovered until the season is over), potatoes, radishes, 
strawberries, raspberry and currant bushes, and fruit-trees. 

The grass is just the same in blade as ours, and leaves 
exactly the same tint on the seat of a pair of white linen pants, 
— the only greenback in circulation here. What we may 
miss in the view are tomatoes (which are hardly established 
here as an article of food) , beans, and our elaborate squashes. 

There is not a corn-field in all England. They call our 
corn maize, and use large quantities to feed stock, but im- 
port it principally from America. I have seen three stalks 
of corn since being in this country.- Two of them are grow- 
ing in Shakspeare's garden at Stratford, where they share 



176 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

with the immortal bard the admiration of American visitors : 
the other is fighting for dear hfe in a flower-pot in an Edin- 
burgh hotel. The English weather is not hot enough to 
mature corn. They say they have no frosts here until the 
middle of October. But they don't need them before that : 
the weather is cold enough without them. It is now the 
middle of August, and we have hovered over a fire for the 
last four days. The fire is in a grate, of course. The Eng- 
lish won't use stoves, because they like to see the flame, it is 
so cheerful and cosey. Once in a while I like Xofeel'xX.', but 
I carefully refrain from saying so. I have seen an English- 
man sit shivering for an hour in front of a fireplace, his face 
lighted up with a smile. He hked to see the fire, it was so 
cheerful and cosey. 

They don't have beans, either : I mean the white cooking- 
bean. They grow a yellowish-brown bean, — fields of it, — 
of the color and nearly the shape of a marrowfat pea. 
This is the only bean they harvest for the winter ; and that 
they grind up, and feed to their stock. When I told them of 
our white beans, ripened in the field, and cooked during the 
winter and following spring for the table, they looked so 
unfriendly, that I dropped the subject at once. They don't 
have pumpkins, — those great yellow fellows, which make 
such grand pies and such rich milk. They have a little sum- 
mer squash for the table ; but they know nothing of the big 
fellows shown at the American fairs. They wouldn't eat dried 
beans ; but they do eat crows. To tell the truth, I have con- 
cealed one or two crows about my own person in the past 
month. It is not the carrion-crow : O heavens, no ! But 
it is the other crow, which lives in the farmhouse trees, and 
is here called a rook. He looks just like his carrion brother ; 
and I don't know how they distinguish them apart, unless it 
is by their breaths. When a man is partaking of a crow-pie, 
he doesn't want to be inquisitive. It mars the festivities. 

Their standard fruits they cultivate against house and 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WIN*DOW. I // 

fence walls, as their summer heat is not sufficiently continu- 
ous and powerful to ripen the fruit without the auxiliary aid 
of the stone and brick. But there is not much pleasure in 
seeing a tree nailed up to a wall hke a grape-vine. In such 
a position it looks more like a criminal than a friend of man. 

The EngHsh use heavy horses, and they are required for 
the work. I have told you how heavy and substantial are 
the English carriages ; but they are half wom-out gossamer 
alongside of the English farm-carts. Their carts measure 
four feet ai'ound the hub, and the rest in proportion. A 
farm-wagon weighs a full ton, and will carry a weight nearly 
four times as great. This huge mass is propelled by from 
three to four horses, rarely four, driven tandem. I have 
not yet seen a load of farm-stuff drawn by horses abreast. 
Why, with their splendid roads and small farms, they should 
deem it necessary to have such monstrous carts and wagons, 
can only be explained by the fact that their forefathers did 
so ; and their forefathers are safer to copy after than their 
American cousins. I believe I spoke in one of my London 
letters of the great number of little ponies in that city. 
They are plenty all over the country. They were suddenly 
introduced into England many years ago, when a tax was 
levied on every horse of twelve hands in height or over. 
We are descended from the Enghsh. 

The people near the common in West Winch have a lane 
which scoops around in the shape of a crescent, taking in the 
main road above and below the church. They call it a lane. 
It is about thirty feet broad, has a good road and a perfect 
sidewalk, with a four-feet hedge of hawthorn on each side. 
This hedge was in blossom when I was there, and, besides 
being additionally beautiful for this reason, was also pleas- 
antly fragrant. These complete sidewalks along country 
roads are common in England. There is a road in Derby- 
shire, running between two towns, which for a mile has as 
good a sidewalk as you will find in any American town of 



1/8 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

fifteen thousand inhabitants. Part of it is of fine gravel, 
another part is of concrete, and the third and greater portion 
is of flagging ; and along the whole is a curbing of granite. 
The villages which it connects cannot boast unitedly a popula- 
tion of three thousand. It is a delight to walk along these 
roads and lanes, with low-browed public-houses at convenient 
distances, with beautiful fields, and comfortable farmhouses, 
and flowering gardens, and ponderous windmills, on the 
right and left, with goods vans, and gayly-painted gypsy- 
wagons, and heavy, substantial farmer and gentry traps, and 
respectful and civil laboring-men meeting you every little 
while. I have passed many an hour in this pleasant and 
healthful recreation. The English themselves are great walk- 
ers. I have seen fashionable young ladies walk to and from 
church, four miles distant, and not brag of it, either. 

All the farmhouses about West Winch have ivy growing 
over them. It is very beautiful indeed, and is generally 
accompanied with dampness and red lice. The gardens and 
roadways abound with holly, which, with its red berry, forms 
an inspiring addition to the winter social gatherings. Like 
the hedges and some other shrubs, it remains green and 
bright through the winter, and robs that season of many of 
the disagreeable features which we New-Englanders are 
obliged to put up with. They have no such snows as we do ; 
no such frosts as. occasionally dip down two and even three 
feet into the New- England soil, slaughtering the most hardy 
of wintering plants. But we have got the best of them in 
two particulars. Our days are a trifle longer than theirs in 
the winter ; and we have autumnal tints and an Indian sum- 
mer, and they have neither. The leaves to their trees sim- 
ply bleed to death before the frost reaches the sap, become 
an ashy hue, and drop unnoticed and uncared for. 

The favorite trap in the country is a two-wheeler. There 
are two kinds. One is a car capable of holding four, two on 
each side, with their knees together, and their eyes turned 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 79 

to the hedges : the other holds four also, two on the front- 
seat and two on the back-seat, each pair facing in opposite 
directions, with the backs of their heads together. When 
you get in at the back of the car, the thills bob up to the 
animal's back, and make you nervous, through fear that the 
under band will cut the animal in two. The other trap jolts 
your bowels out of position on the front ; and, if you are on 
the back-seat, all pleasure of the ride is lost in desperate and 
almost maddening endeavors to keep from falling into the 
road. A two-hours' ride on the back-seat of one of those 
two-wheeled traps will sprinkle the youngest head with gray 
hairs. 

I have not yet seen a yoke of oxen. The English do not 
know what they miss by not having oxen. A country must 
in time become low-spirited and depressed that does not 
have oxen to stir it up. They are like the wind, are oxen. 
One yoke of them will get over more ground in one hour 
than a barrel of oysters will in a day. Give me an ox for 
speed. 

There are no tin peddlers here to cheat and swindle, and 
leave the doors open. There is but little tin used anyway. 
In the dairy they use great earthen dishes for the milk, and 
a servant-girl has to drop one of them pretty hard to break 
it ; but, as servant-girls rarely get over twenty-five dollars 
per annum, their mind naturally runs into other channels 
than breaking dishes. 

Sheep are an important stock with English farmers. The 
English people are fond of mutton as an article of food, and 
have it quite steadily. When they tire of mutton, they have 
lamb. Beef they never neglect. They are the most docile 
and uncomplaining of people when beef is around. Their 
sheep are the best in the world, I believe. You have seen 
pictures of shepherds with the proverbial crook in their 
hands ? I didn't think a party could be a shepherd without 
this crook, any more than a man could be the leader of an 



l80 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

orchestra without a pair of pants. I was glad that the first 
man whom I saw tending sheep carried one of these crooks. 
I didn't know what a crook was for, but ahvays beheved it 
was a badge of the occupation, whose origin I could not 
fathom, handed down from century to century since the time 
when sheep were invented. Imagine my genuine disgust 
when I saw this shepherd use the sacred crook to capture 
the straying animals by catching hold of one of their hind- 
legs and tripping them up ! The awful truth came upon me 
like a flash ; and I sat down heavily, a broken-hearted man. 
I had thought it a beautiful emblem, and it proves to be a 
hind-leg snatcher ! 

Thus floated the wind from another sweet vision of youth. 

I don't hardly understand how an Englishman should look 
so hearty and rugged. He is not a hearty eater : he will 
"stuff" his guests, however. His breakfast is light, con- 
sisting of a small bit of bacon and an egg. At one o'clock 
he has the regular dinner of roast meat and boiled cauliflower. 
At five o'clock he partakes of thinly-cut bread and a cup 
of tea. At nine o'clock he has a small bit of meat, and 
bread without butter, and a glass of ale. After supper he 
takes a glass of gin and hot water, smokes a pipe, and goes 
to bed at peace with everybody. It is a quiet enough 
life ; for he don't even have a nightmare to end up with. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. l8l 



CHAPTER XXI. 



A GENERAL ATTACK ON RUINS. 



TO be truthful, my secret longing in coming^ to Europe 
was to see a ruin. There is enough of romance .about 
me to clothe a ruin, whether of church or of castle, with all 
the glory of chivalry. I hankered to get into a castle, to 
throw stones into the neglected moat, to hear my footsteps 
echo in the vacant corridors, to stand and meditate in the 
banqueting-rooms, to stride through the lofty halls, and walk 
languidly up the grand but crumbling staircase. All the 
fictions of English and French origin have one or more ruins 
in them; and, looking upon them as the only remaining 
remnants of that grand and glorious past, they became 
endeared to me ; and I thought, from a boy up, that, if I 
could but go to Europe and see a ruined castle, I would be 
willing to give up my Hfe and all its pleasures. I have seen 
the ruin ; but the willingness spoken of has not yet got along. 
As much in fiction accepted as gospel is dispersed by the 
more thorough and realistic light of matured age, so I came 
to suspect that the mossy castles crumbling into ruins, and 
ancestral halls filled with secret passages, gloomy vaults, 
barracks for soldiers, and a host of drawing-rooms, and a 
gorgeous picture-gallery, were simply myths. In the first 
place, I came to doubt that a private building could be 
large enough to accommodate all these apartments and 
demands ; and, when they spoke of a long gallery whose walls 



1 82 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

were filled with paintings, I staggered, reeled about, and 
went down before the statement in utter collapse. For, 
please remember, the time of such galleries was before 
''The New-York Independent" fell into the habit of giving 
away elegant and costly chromos, and no man of ordinary 
wealth could afford to stock one of them with oil-paintings. 

We don't have ruins in our country. When a building 
gets old, and begins to leak, the tenants swear they won't 
pay the rent, and are moved out, and the glass is stoned 
from the windows by the neighboring boys, and the house is 
pulled down, and the timber sold to some poor man, whose 
boy saws it up into firewood, and uses the most dreadful 
language when his saw strikes a nail. Ruins are an injury to 
our country, I think. I could not understand, until I got 
here, why ruins should exist in active, enterprising, and 
crowded England : I could not understand why they were 
allowed to cumber valuable ground to the exclusion of valua- 
ble rentable buildings. It was so contrary to the spirit of 
gain displayed in America, that I could not comprehend it. 

And all these romances spoke of castles inhabited in part, 
and ruined in the balance, or of halls mossy with age, but 
never spoke of a new castle, of one being in the process 
of construction. In the dead of night I have frequently 
awoke to wonder if castles and old halls were ever built. 
Rather, were they not created with the world, and by the 
same mysterious force ? If they were built by human hands, 
who did it? Did the contractor do it by the day, or job? 
If by the latter, did he lose money? Did the workmen 
carry their dinners ? Did they steal apples from the neigh- 
boring orchards? Did their boys have to carry them hot 
coffee after coming out of school at noon ? Were they in 
favor of the eight-hour system ? Did they have processions 
on St. Patrick's Day? Did they get in debt? For Heaven's 
sake, who were they ? what were they ? The mystery shroud- 
ing these men — their needs, hopes, aspirations, loves, sym- 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 83 

pathies, and every thing else calculated to establish their 
humanity, and give them a tangible shape in the practical 
eyes of this age — is perfectly dreadful. 

Ruins are scattered all over England, and it is a very poor 
county indeed that hasn't a half-dozen of them ; and these 
ruins are not scattered through the country portion of Eng- 
land alone, but can be found in the very heart of the cities, 
with the waves of unceasing traffic beating against their very 
walls. 

There are two theories in accounting for the presence of 
ruins in Europe. The first is a reverential sentiment, which 
is opposed to desecrating what age has sanctified ; and the 
second — perhaps less sentimental, but none the less effec- 
tive — is the enormous strength of the walls. An attempt was 
made to quarry stone for a bridge out of Rochester Castle ; 
but, after working several weeks to secure a couple of cart- 
loads of material, the projectors of the idea retired in despair. 
These ruins are not all sightly, of course ; some of them, 
from an architectural or ornamental stand-point, are very 
insignificant : but they all are alike hallowed by time, and 
so are alike valuable. The owners are jealous of them. 
They treat them with great tenderness. We in America do 
not understand this, no more than does a woman who has 
no silk dress understand what people find to admire in the 
silk dress belonging to the woman next door. In a Scotch 
town there are the four walls of an old church standing in a 
man's front-yard. It shuts out completely his view of the 
street. But he wouldn't exchange those crumbling walls for 
a five-thousand-dollar fountain. Why not ? Simply because 
there are scores of families in his town who could get a five- 
thousand-dollar fountain ; but all the wealth on the earth, 
or in the waters beneath the earth, could not put a ruin in 
their front-yards. So he sits back of those walls, and is 
happy to a degree that is simply exasperating to outsiders. 

The walls to these ruins are formed of just such material 



184 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

as we build cellar-walls, and many of them look like the four 
walls of a cellar thrown to the surface by some convulsion of 
nature. I had an idea that castles were built of huge, evenly- 
squared blocks of granite, with marble floors. But they are 
of just such composition as I mention ; and how the builders 
ever succeeded in getting them up straight is something I 
cannot understand. The floors are not of marble, but of 
concrete. Where they are not of concrete, they are flagging ; 
and, in the days when they were in their prime, rheumatism 
must have been in the heyday of its career. 

The ground-floors to many of the houses now occupied 
are of stone ; but it is not so bad as oil-cloth. 

The cement in the walls of the various ruins excites the 
attention of many people. They say it is impossible to make 
as firm mortar in these days. It is hard, — harder than losing 
an eight-hundred-dollar horse. I have nothing to say against 
the cuteness of the ancients, except in the matter of archi- 
tecture and painting. I cannot forget that several-hundred- 
year-old revolver and breech-loader which I saw in the Tower 
of London. The ancients did many things which we are just 
discovering and proclaiming as our own invention, and I 
do not doubt that it will yet be found that they had shirts 
opening behind. But let us not anticipate. 

But it is interesting to speculate on the origin of ruins. 
What puzzled me, when I heard of ruins afar off, was to 
understand how they became so. In what year, and what 
day, at what hour of the day, did they throw off the respecta- 
ble yoke of usefulness, and sink into architectural loaferism ? 
For several hundred years these castles have been loafers, — 
corner-loafers at that. And why? Well, in the first place, 
they were built when protection against foes was as essential 
as, protection against weather. They were not ornamental, 
had no bay-windows, and were French-roofless. When civili- 
zation so far advanced that every man was made safe in his 
possessions, and law usurped violence, the occupation of 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 85 

the building, its specialty, was done away with. It became 
a loafer. In some instances, as in that of Warwick Castle 
particularly, they were modernized and improved upoix, and 
are to-day in business, and doing well. But in most cases 
they were deserted for more comfortable dwellings ; and, being 
too strongly built to be taken apart with economy, their walls 
were left. As for the wood- work, it was wrenched out for 
fuel ; and as for the window-glass, where one could boast 
such a luxury, it was undoubtedly stoned out by the neighbor- 
ing boys on Saturday afternoons. As to why the wood-work 
was not carefully removed, and used in parts of the new 
structure, I would mention that it was mostly of oak, and 
most respectfully refer you for full information to some car- 
penter who has taken down an old oaken building, and under- 
taken to re-use the material. Anybody who has attempted 
to drive a cast-iron nail into a venerable oak board will be 
pleased to give you any information you may desire, if he 
is alive. 

Sometimes the occupants were forced to skedaddle from 
the country, leaving the house tenantless ; and, the carpets of 
the victor not fitting the rooms of the deserted place, his 
wife would not consent to moving in : so the place was left 
to the tender mercies of poor and predatory neighbors. 

It is easy enough to account for things when you sit right 
down and give your whole attention to them, as I do. 

There are the lofty tower and arches of a Gray-Friars 
monastery between two busy streets in Lynn. It rears its 
old and scarred figure as if in defiance of trade and all mod- 
ern improvements. An iron fence surrounds it, with a locked 
gate ; and application must be made to the proprietor of the 
grammar-school opposite for permission to go inside and 
feel of the arches, climb up the hundred and sixty steps 
which lead to the top, and get your back full of sacred mor- 
tar and dust. The proprietor of that school is also the pro- 
prietor of the bit of ground on which this ruined monastery 



1 86 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

stands ; and he would as soon think of digging up his wife's 
mother, and putting her in a glass case on the front mantel, 
as pulling down this crazy structure. 

About three miles from Lynn is a little hamlet called 
Castle Rising. It consists of a blacksmith-shop, an inn, a 
church, hall, and an almshouse, with about twenty dwellings. 

The hall is the residence of Lady Howard, a woman as 
religious as she is old. She owns all of the village, and a 
good share of property about it. It seems, to look down on 
Rising, that you could cover it with a farmer's Sunday hand- 
kerchief, so small it is ; but there was a time when it had a 
mayor and alderman, an annual mart (which continued two 
weeks) , and a weekly market of great importance. 

Among Lady Howard's possessions is a considerable ruin 
of a castle. It sits in a basin on the top of a rising piece of 
ground. Its walls are standing, and several rooms in one 
part of it are inhabited : but the main roof is gone ; the 
greater part of the windows are frameless ; the beams and 
the flooring of the main rooms are gone ; and bushes three 
feet high are growing luxuriantly up the broken and ragged 
surface of the walls. There is a great moat about it now, 
filled with trees thirty feet high ; a broken stone arch bridge 
leading across to the gate which guarded the entrance to 
the outside court, but now is crumbling, and dropping piece- 
meal upon the head of some pleasure-seeker. In this out- 
side court is also the base wall of a chapel, which the people 
hereabouts readily ascribe to the advent of Christianity in 
England twelve hundred years ago. They seem to be enjoy- 
ing better health than I do. 

■ There is a broad green outside, where people engage in 
cricket ; and the neighborhood, including the castle, is used 
by picnickers for a day of recreation. They don't build fires 
outdoors, and cook their tea, as we do in America : wood is 
too scarce here for that purpose. In the neighborhood of 
resorts for picnicking parties, you will see on the walls of 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 8/ 

adjoining cottages such notices as these : " Hot water for 
tea," "Tea cooked here," "Parties suppHed with hot water." 

At the Black Horse in Rising, picnickers may boil their 
tea ; but their favorite place is the inhabitable part of the 
castle, where a family reside. 

The family consists of a man, wife, and two young chil- 
dren. The man is a vagabond poHceman. I don't mean to 
say that that is the name he goes by here ; but I call him so 
from the fact that he has a beat for some distance in the 
country, and is always moving. Only his uniform saves him 
from being a tramp. He dresses like the city police, with 
the exception that he wears a fatigue-cap instead of a helmet. 
You will find him, or his prototype, along almost every coun- 
try road in England. They are called " walking police," 
to distinguish them, I presume, from the city police, who 
habitually go about in a golden chariot, with sixteen horses 
and nine footmen apiece. He was off duty when I was there, 
and sang "God save the Queen," but irreparably damaged 
the petition with an accompaniment on a violin. 

He was a large, burly man, and his wife a young, frail- 
looking woman ; and the children looked as if they had just 
been dug up from the neighboring churchyard for the occa- 
sion. They were poor and helpless, and, if they were not 
the occupants of a castle, would have probably made away 
with themselves ere this. They occupy this part of the 
castle, rent free, by permission of Lady Howard, for the 
caring of it, and, when not indulging in historical emotions, 
are boiling tea for picnickers. 

Then there is a church a mile or so below, the chancel of 
which is in ruins, and overgrown with ivy ; but the congrega- 
tion have stoned up the gap, and worship in the main part 
with becoming sanctity. They would make it very warm for 
anybody who would dare to carry away any of the broken 
stones. About two miles in an opposite direction from the 
castle is the ruin of a church, — Bawsley Church it is called ; 



1 88 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

and if four stumpy bleak walls, with not even a bit of 
floor or an inch of stone window-casing about it, can be 
called a church, this is certainly one. It is on a rise of 
ground in the middle of a sheep-pasture, with nothing more 
dignified than a cart-path approaching. Where was its floor 
is now a mass of broken stone, and evidences of the sheep 
being well fed. Several hundred years ago it had prayers, 
and music, weddings, christenings, &c. But the people who 
did those things have fared worse than the church ; for there 
is not a crumb of them left, nor even a morsel of the stones 
which marked their burial. 

Little boys pinched each other's legs, and put sharp sticks 
down each other's backs, and made faces at the little girls, 
and lads and maidens have flirted, and aged and experienced 
men and women have enjoyed Nature's balmy restorer, on 
this spot. But they are all gone now ; and, if they could 
return to-day, they would recognize nothing about here ex- 
cept this church, and hardly that. The forests and hedges, 
and buildings and customs, of their time, have flitted away, 
to come no more. Even the face of the earth has changed 
since then ; and unless they saw my fair conductor, who 
wore a bustle and a pair of high-heeled shoes, they would 
move away with more disappointment than they had capacity 
for, I am afraid. 

But I am losing the thread of my discourse. This decay- 
ing fabric belongs to the farmer who owns the sheep-pasture. 
It is useless to him, and hardly affords shade for his sheep ; 
but he will not touch it. He has the same feeHngs which 
Lady Howard and the proprietor of the grammar-school 
share with each other. And the same sentiment pervades 
all England. It is this, I suspect, which accounts for the 
people of this country taking every thing valuable in the way 
of sculpture out of Egypt and putting it in the British Muse- 
um, fearing unprincipled vandals would steal it and carry it 
away. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 89 

But to come back to the castle. The inhabitable portion 
is in one corner, on the second floor above the ground. It 
is reached by a broad stairway of stone, — a cather imposing 
stairway too. The castle was used as a place of fortification 
in the feudal days, when the only law in operation appeared 
to be that of might, and when the stronger of two neighbor- 
ing barons could, and frequently did, wrest away the other's 
property. To the tenants it made but little diflerence, I 
suspect, to whom they paid their rents. Half way up the 
staircase is an opening in the ceiling, through which the 
besieged, when the enemy gained the stairway, poured hot 
oil and molten lead on the besiegers. When a man got a 
quart of molten lead down his back he left at once, and 
rarely called again for the hot oil. It is a trifling incident ; 
but it shows that the people of those days were not wholly 
grasping and avaricious, as history would have us believe. 

At the top of the stairway we c^me upon an open door, 
and passed into a unique apartment. It was an irregular- 
shaped room of about fifteen square feet, with monstrous 
deep recesses to the little window ; but it was the singular 
blending of the modern and ancient furniture that excited 
the attention. It was the cooking and dining room of the 
family. A huge fireplace was at one end of the apartment, 
and about it were the andirons and utensils for the prepara- 
tion of the humble repast. A table in the centre, with ven- 
erable legs in rich carving, was covered with crumbs, and 
here and there a ring on its surface about the size of a tum- 
bler or tankard. At the side were two highly- carved and 
remarkably straight-backed chairs. They were handsome 
enough ; but no mortal could sit in one of them, and feel 
pleasant toward his neighbors. I do not wonder now that 
our ancestors were so prone to blood, and suffered death so 
satisfactorily. Any man who sat in one of those chairs for 
thirty years must have found death at the stake or block a 
positive luxury. 



IQO ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

There was also an enormous chest with quaint but grace- 
fully executed devices in oak, and bound about with brass. 
It looked arrogant and defiant enough as it sat there in the 
corner ; but the baggage-master of the shortest and poorest 
railway in America would take the conceit out of it inside of 
two minutes. The chest was about half full of relics preserved 
from the castle. About the room were baby-clothes under- 
going the process of drying, and exuding a dehcate odor. 
On the right of the fireplace was a stair-passage leading to a 
large room above. It was not a remarkable apartment, with 
its bare walls of stone, warped oaken floor, and narrow, dingy 
window. ■ It was the bedroom of Isabella, the queen of Ed- 
ward the Second, who was sent here by her husband on the 
discovery of her amour with a young chap named Mortimer. 
The young chap supplemented the loss of his heart with the 
loss of his head. She lived here many years after the death 
of her husband, and died here, in fact. 

We crawled up a circular staircase to the top of the walls, 
and I stood out on the ragged summit and looked down. 
One brief glance sufficed me. We returned to the head of 
the main staircase, and, crawling through a narrow passage, 
came into a corridor which went entirely around the four 
sides of the main building. Its floor was on a level with the 
banqueting-hall ; but there is no banqueting-hall here now, — 
nothing but the open air. The musicians were stationed in 
this corridor, and performed during the feasts. 

There was no end of revelry in these walls centuries ago. 
Wax tapers lighted them up, and made glorious the satins, 
the jewels, and bright eyes of the hosts which have come and 
gone since the castle was reared. There is a depressing 
silence about the place, broken only by the twittering of 
sparrows, and the swaying of the weeds and nettles which 
spring from the ruins; and it seems a mockery to try to 
restore, even in the imagination, the gayety and pleasure 
which once peopled it all. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. I9I 

And a vagabond policeman with a slovenly wife boiling 
tea, and playing " God save the Queen " on a debilitated 
violin, is the end of it all, the humiliating finis of a glorious 
career. 

The castle, like many other ruins I have seen, is formed 
of a curious mixture of stone chips, cobbles, and brick, the 
walls not plastered inside. How their ughness was hid 
I do not know. Perhaps it was not concealed at all, but 
was just as we now find it. In such a case there must 
have been trouble. Imagine young Lord de Rowbeer, whose 
father recently came over with the Conqueror, dancing a set 
with a bewitching partner. In the excitement of the dance 
he is struck against by Baron Ovonner, also recently from 
Normandy, and sent spinning against the nutmeg-grater 
wall. You will have no trouble in imagining him getting on 
his feet in a way to conceal the damage to his pants, and 
with the blood trickling down his face, his sword drawn, and 
shaking with passion, inviting the baron to step out into the 
back-yard and get "nailed " between the eyes. With equal 
ease we can imagine the baron, later in the night, awakened 
from a sound, virtuous sleep by a lump of concrete falling 
from the wall of his be*d-chamber, and striking him on the 
nose. We will not pause to listen to his remarks. 



192 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



ENGLISH CHARITY. 



CASTLE RISING is infinitesimally small; but it illus- 
trates a peculiar feature of English villages. It is com- 
pact, orderly, and clean. There are no broken-down fences, 
strolling cattle in the road, yards filled with plantain and 
smartweed, nor chips and debris in front of the houses. 
There is not even- a single gate on one hinge. However 
poor an Enghsh hamlet may be, there is about it a compact- 
ness and neatness which strike the attention at once. The 
houses are plain and unattractive ; but the gardens are filled 
with healthy vegetables, and clean grass and bright flowers. 
There are well-defined sidewalks, and a smooth, hard turn- 
pike. Even the harshness of the castle-walls is toned down 
by the unbroken sea of grass about it. The Black Horse is 
a quaint old inn, attended by a woman, with a tiny bar, and 
a bar parlor with two tables, a bench all around the room, 
and a sanded floor. The neighbors gather here of an even- 
ing, and sip their ale, and smoke long clay pipes, and talk 
about the crops and the humble matters of such a neigh- 
borhood. The inn is shaded by a huge tree ; and there are 
two which meet together over the red tile roof of the black- 
smith-shop, which is a few yards beyond. The blacksmith- 
shop is of stone, of course, as all the other buildings are. 
A few months ago, if any one had told me that blacksmith- 
shops could have been made of stone, I would have laughed 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. I93 

at him. How could they build of that material so as to leave 
an opening, every ten inches, of an inch in width, for the 
wind and snow to come through ? Now that we have got 
into the subject, I should really like to know what chance 
for success a village blacksmith-shop would have in America 
in which the customer could not freeze both of his legs. 
Just around the blacksmith-shop of Castle Rising runs a 
road down by the ehurch, — a hard, smooth road, with a 
pretty sidewalk. Opposite the church is a building setting 
a little below the street-level, having sharp gables and a 
number of them, and a substantial stone wall in front. It is 
built of dingy brick, and would hardly elicit but a casual 
glance from the passing stranger; but it is one of those 
institutions which are common all over England, and illus- 
trates most forcibly a prominent characteristic of the English 
people, — charity. 

The village of Castle Rising has scarcely a population of 
a hundred souls ; but it has a Norman church, a ruined 
castle, and a hospital. This low, odd-shaped building is a 
charity-hospital, for the sole accommodation of old women. 
It was founded by a Lord Howard, who was an earl of 
Northumberland in the reign of James the First, for the 
benefit of old women who were without pecuniary support, 
and were of a goodly conversation and prudent behavior. 
His money endowed it for an everlasting monument to his 
thoughtfulness and kindness of heart. It has stood here 
for two hundred years, and will stand here when judgment- 
day dawns. 

This hospital forms the four sides of a grass court. All 
the rooms open out upon the court. Each room for the 
occupation of an old woman is about eight feet square. In 
it she lives and sleeps. Each is provided with a window 
and a fireplace. The furniture is furnished by themselves, 
and the most of it is what they have been accustomed to 
since they first entered upon hfe (for articles here are made 



194 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

substantial, and are calculated to last for generations) : con- 
sequently, the movable features of the rooms do not present 
that uniformity which contributes one-half the dreariness to 
alms-hou$es and prisons. The mantels were filled with bits 
of china, plaster-of-paris, and stone ornaments ; and against 
some of the walls were colored lithographs of the sailor-boy, 
Angeline, and other familiar characters of romance and 
song. 

There are about twenty occupants of the Castle-Rising 
Hospital, their ages ranging from fifty-five to ninety-three 
years. Each one has a dollar a week, a linsey-woolsey dress 
per annum, and a ton and a quarter of coal every year, and 
the rent free. Out of this dollar she must furnish her own 
food. She has the privilege of doing needle or other light 
work for sale. They live comfortably, and appear to be very 
happy and contented. The rooms were scrupulously clean, 
and every article was in place. Most of the old ladies were 
sitting by the open doors, knitting. On Sundays and saint- 
days they appear at church in scarlet cloaks and high-peaked 
hats, — a la Mother Hubbard. 

The English are remarkable as the authors of endowment. 
The land fairly bristles with monuments of this trait, in the 
shape of hospitals, schools, drinking-fountains, and the like ; 
and, in addition, corporations and municipalities and parishes 
take a hand in, and are doing their level best to make the 
land a surprise to strangers, and a delight to the Divine Pro- 
tector of the widowed and fatherless. 

No wonder this English nation is so wealthy, so powerful, 
and so famous. 

I have visited several of the alms-houses, and find them 
uniform in appearance and conduct. The most interesting 
is that in the village of Darwenham. There were about one 
hundred inmates in all. They were mostly old men and 
women. There were some boys and girls, and a half-dozen 
idiots. In every alms-house I have found several idiots. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. I95 

An English physician tells me that the large percentage of 
idiocy in England is due, in a great degree, to the beer-sot- 
tishness of the mother. The keeper of this alms-house gave 
me the same opinion. 

The men were dressed in corduroy, and the women in 
linsey-woolsey. We passed through the bed department; 
and the keeper turned down the clothes, and pulled up the 
bedding, to show me how neat and clean the beds were 
kept. And they were neat and clean. We passed into the 
dining-room for the men, and saw them partaking of their 
supper, which consisted of bread and tea. In the morning 
this is supplemented with bacon, and at noon they have a 
dish of vegetables, and boiled or roast meat. They looked 
hearty. In one room there was a fire burning ; and about it 
sat several very old men, leaning on the head of their sticks. 
They were red-eyed and wrinkled, and trembling with age. 
My companion, a well-to-do, bluff, hearty, generous English 
farmer, had Hved in this neighborhood some years before, 
and recognized and was recognized by several of the inmates, 
whom he had known in better circumstances. He shook 
hands with them most heartily, and slipped surreptitious 
shillings into their palms. How glad they were to see him ! 
and how their dull eyes brightened up as he recalled past 
incidents of mutual knowledge ! 

There was an old woman who was housekeeper for a 
neighboring lord when he left the place twenty years before. 
He gave his name and old neighborhood. She shielded her 
eyes, and looked earnestly at him. "Yes, yes, I know you," 
she said slowly ; " but " — a pause and a look, — " but you 
were lame then, I thought." — "And I am lame yet," he said, 
taking a few steps before her to show her, and looking as 
pleased over her delight as if his infirmity were not an afflic- 
tion, but a genuine benefit. We went into the hospital, and, 
in passing across the court to it, were arrested by music in 
one of the wings, and paused to listen to it. It was the boys 



196 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

and girls singing grace after their supper. It sounded very 
sweet and impressive. In the hospital we found several pros- 
trate and suffering. One of them was propped up in bed, 
dying from heart-disease. 

There was something startling in watching this man wres- 
tling with the awful enemy, which had him by the throat, 
choking Hfe, hope, gladness, and every thing out of his heart 
but the memory of the past and what might have been. 
Dying on a pallet of straw, with strange faces about him, 
and whitewashed walls and fellow-misery to witness the ter- 
rible and losing fight which he was carrying on ; contesting, 
inch by inch, in the agony of despair, the ground which was 
being wrested from him, — was this pauper, whose boyish 
head of brown hair, less than thirty years ago, was caressed 
and kissed by hands and lips which thought to ever be with 
him, and take him up to a pitying God, but which were now 
mouldering in the churchyard hard by. 

■Just such another fight as this took place in this very room 
less than twelve hours ago ; and the victim lay stiff and ashy 
in a coffin in the apartment below, with the straw which 
formed his winding-sheet bubbhng over the edges of the 
plain deal box. In still another room was an old man very 
sick, who awakened as we stepped sofdy into his room. He 
said, looking at the keeper, and speaking like one coming 
out of a dream, " I thought I was in North Ameriky with 
my boy Jim : I must have dreamed it." — "You are not in 
America; but America is here," said the keeper, pointing to 
me. It was an almshouse-keeper's idea of a joke. The 
old man brightened up at this, and wanted to know if I had 
seen his boy Jim, who lived in Sandusky, O. 

I have often been asked a similar question in this country, 
and hardly felt put out at not being able to give the neces- 
sary information ; but it gave me keen pain to tell this old 
man that I did not know his boy Jim. 

Many of the English have a peculiar and very startling 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 1 97 

idea of the extent of America. At one hotel where I stopped 
was a family from Michigan. I never saw them before. 
An English friend said to me, "Did you know the Fergusons 
before you came here?" — "I did not." — "That's odd," 
said he in a perplexed voice : " they are from the same coun- 
try you are." I felt obliged to explain to him, that, besides 
the Fergusons, there were some three other families in Ameri- 
ca with whom I was not personally acquainted, it was such a 
large place. 



IQS ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



AMUSEMENTS. 



I TOOK a run down to Manchester one day, and spent 
a very exciting and interesting forty-eight hours there. 

While there I visited the office of the American consul, Mr. 
Newton Crane, formerly companion-editor of the lamented 
Charley Leonard on " The St. Louis Democrat ; " and 
with that gentleman I spent a pleasant half-hour, and wit- 
nessed an incident containing a world of suggestion. The 
hero was a colored man, who chewed tobacco under many 
disadvantages, having an expansive mouth, large, irregular, 
and broken teeth, and rather depressive-looking gums. 

He must have been nearly fifty years of age, and was 
indifferently clad. He had a pleasant, mutton-tallow voice. 

He said he had called to find a means of returning to 
America. 

"You are from America, then?" said Mr. Crane. 

"Yes, sir." 

" What brought you here ? " 

" Well, sir, I thought I should like to come over and see 
the morther-Q.o\xYi\xy y (Sensation among the company.) 

" And so you came over to see her. Did you think you 
could do better here? " 

" Well — yes, sir. I was told by the English and Scotch 
and Irish people what come to our country that a colored 
man generally intelligent could do well over here, and would 
be much thought of; and so I come." 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. I99 

" And you haven't done well over here? " 

" No, sir, I ain't. It's kept going from bad to worse. 
There ain't no work to be got, an' I don't stand any chance 
to get what there is ; an' I'm in a bad way generally, sir. I 
have worked for two lords as cook, but I got out with them ; 
an' I've been a-goin' down all the while." 

" Don't they treat you well over here? " 

" Oh, yes, sir ! they treat me well ; but I don't get any 
thin' to eat : and I thought I should like to take my old 
bones back to the States." 

It will be gratifying to my readers to learn that his old 
bones were shipped in that direction the next day. 

A negro at a distance is an object of admiration to the 
English people. 

In the evening we went to the Belle Vue. 

Whether it is at a theatre, or any other entertainment, the 
Englishman abandons himself to a full enjoyment of what 
he beholds. So he naturally runs to gardens, as better cal- 
culated to indulge this desire ; and as he builds his house 
as plainly as possible, and throws his weight in architecture 
on his church, so he looks not so much at a garden at home, 
but makes the public affair as elaborate as money and taste 
can do it. 

We do not think much of Manchester, except as a manu- 
factory of cotton-goods ; and yet America has but one city 
as large as it ; and New York, with all its wealth, taste, and 
reputation, has no public garden to compare with either of 
the two with which Manchester is provided. 

The Belle Vue is the smaller but the best known of the 
two gardens. 

There are trips, or what we would call excursions, made 
to it two or three times a week from the adjoining towns 
and counties. It is better known to many English people 
than is Manchester itself, I am sorry to say. 

Belle Vue comprises a museum of curiosities, a menagerie 



200 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

that would put to shame the travelhng concerns by that name 
in America (by the way, I should like to wager that one 
of the Belle -Vue bears would put to flight an entire American 
menagerie, and even scare the ticket-master, and then get 
back home in time for an early tea), an aviary, an aquarium, 
and a pond with many row and three miniature steam 
boats. 

Then there is a painting on wood of the battle of Waterloo, 
arranged in terraces, with openings among the imitated hills 
and ridges for the manoeuvring of troops. This painting is in 
the open air, and remains up until the expiration of a year, 
when it is taken down, and some other historical incident of 
tragic interest is substituted for the succeeding year. 

Opposite this is a stand for the band, with flanking gal- 
leries capable of seating ten thousand people ; and between 
these galleries and the painting is a platform where three 
hundred couples can dance at once. Under the galleries 
are extensive tea and bar rooms. One of the tea-rooms is 
a sixpence, and the other a shiUing department; and the 
shilling entitles you to a pot of tea and a half-dozen shoes 
of bread and butter which were neither cut nor spread by a 
step-mother. I have seen no caterers in England who 
imagine Providence has bequeathed them a popular place 
of entertainment for the express purpose of swindling the 
patrons. 

As the sun went down, and twilight (that mystic halo which 
crowns England from the disappearance to the re-appearance 
of the sunlight) succeeded, the crowds increased quite visi- 
bly, and it was safe to say that fully ten thousand people 
were present. The elephant, which all the afternoon had 
been carrying loads of jolly children about the grounds with 
a solemnity befitting his task, had retired ; and across the 
gravelled plaza rode mounted men in armor, taking their 
way to the mysterious recesses of Waterloo. We mounted 
into the galleries with thousands of others, and patiently 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 201 

waited until ten o'clock. As that hour struck, the field of 
Waterloo renewed its carnage and terrific uproar. A balloon, 
shedding innumerable blue-lights, suddenly started heaven- 
ward ; rockets, Roman candles, and blue-lights flashed forth ; 
the hills and ridges became alive with cavalry, infantry, and 
brigadier-generals ; cannon-crackers, cannons, and musketry 
pealed forth their thunders ; battle-flags waved ; music sound- 
ed ; and the cries of the combatants filled the air. Then a 
barn in the foreground took fire ; and the flames rolled up 
through the roof, adding their crackling and hissing to the 
general horror. Charge after charge was made and repulsed : 
finally the French were overcome, and then the cannonading 
and musketry became fairly awful, and the scene closed. 

All, ah, for a shilling ! 

Dear reader, why not come to England ? 

And the police were there, of course. Whether the enter- 
tainment is of public or private furnishing, they are always 
about, always in the way of ruffians and rowdies, and, what 
are infinitely worse than either, impudent country boors; 
and in all the number at this cheap entertainment, with several 
bar-rooms within its limits, there was no disturbance. 

I had read so much of the sufferings and deprivations of 
the operatives in the Manchester cotton-mills, that I had a 
pardonable curiosity to see them. We proceeded there at 
once. The location of the mill we were to visit my friend 
was uncertain about ; and, getting into its neighborhood, he 
inquired of a laboring-woman on the street, who pointed out 
the building. As it led us in the direction she was going, we 
went with her ; and she proceeded to a discourse. She told 
us that the mill in question was hardly known by the firm's 
name, and gave the popular name, which was a most filthy 
cognomen. She didn't blush when she said it, but admitted 
that she was almost ashamed to speak it when she first came 
into the neighborhood. We left her, where we were to turn 
off, with sincere regret. 



202 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

We found an obliging manager in charge, who kindly took 
us through the different departments, and intelligently ex- 
plained to us the offices of the machinery. But it was the 
mill-people I wanted to see, and the typical mill-girl in 
particular. I saw her immediately. Her name was Blanche. 
She was about forty-eight years old, had a wen on the top of 
her head, and no upper teeth. 

I was satisfied. 

The mill was very clean, and every thing appeared in order. 
One o'clock was the hour for quitting ; and, prompt to the 
second, work was stopped. I was surprised at this. 

There are thousands of men, women, and children working 
in the cotton and other mills of Manchester ; but the govern- 
ment has them in charge, and they are most amply protected. 

Whatever of oppression, poverty, and suffering that is 
said to have prevailed here a half-century ago is not appar- 
ent now. 

The employers have not changed ; they are just as selfish 
and human as they were then : but the inexorable law of 
this country has stretched forth its iron hand over them, and 
the least deviation from the path of prescribed action closes 
the merciless fingers upon them. 

The operatives get to work at six o'clock, have breakfast 
between seven and eight, quit at one, recommence at two, 
and cease for good at half-past five or six o'clock. If a 
manufacturer should keep them a minute over time, and was 
reported, he would be promptly hoisted in front of the near- 
est magistrate, and subjected to a fine of two hundred and 
fifty dollars, with the additional discomfort of having his 
name and offence paraded in print. 

As to wages, the children earn from a dollar to a dollar 
and a half per week ; the women, from two to four dollars ; 
and the men, from five to seven dollars. The women and 
children wear a coarse shoe with a heavy wooden sole ; and, 
when the hundreds and thousands pass over the pavement to 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 2O3 

and from work, the clicking of the wooden soles is almost 
deafening. They, as well as all Lancashire working-people, 
have an unfortunate habit of nicknaming; and so popular 
become these titles, that men have been known to almost 
forget their surnames, while their neighbors entirely lose sight 
of them. If a man's given name is Tom, he is called so 
by everybody, to the complete exclusion of his family name. 
If he has a son, the son's name and the father's are blended. 
For instance, if the son's name is Bill, he is known and ever 
spoken of or addressed as Bill of Tom ; and so on. 

I had just time to take a run out to the Pomona Palace, 
which is the disguising title of the companion-garden to 
Belle Vue. 

A dog-show was the principal feature, and I am extrava- 
gantly fond of dogs. The afternoon I came into the city, I 
found two mastiffs in the depot. In the confusion, I thought 
they were two freight-cars that had by some inscrutable 
means got off the track. I was glad to find they were dogs. 
The larger of the two was called the champion of England, 
and added other laurels by carrying off the prize at the 
show. It is a very nice thing in England, as well as in 
America, to have thd champion animal of the country ; for 
as long as shows are kept up, so long is the owner assured of 
an income. 

This was the largest dog I ever saw : it was the largest 
dog any two people ever saw. I thought at first I would 
buy him, but partly hesitated on learning the price (one 
thousand dollars), and completely gave up the idea before I 
saw him out of the station. 

He was secured by a chain in the hands of an attendant, — 
a man who appeared to be in a chronic state of perspiration 
and protestation. And he was an erratic dog. He made 
violent and entirely unexpected dashes at various objects 
or openings ; and, wherever he went, the perspiring and pro- 
testing individual was sure to go. He snapped him off his 



204 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

feet every other minute, and in the intervals hauled him 
over sharp-cornered trunks, bumped him against other people 
with luggage in their hands, or shoved him over highly-indig- 
nant but utterly helpless little boys, whose unrestrained curi- 
osity had led them too close to the performance. The last 
I saw of the keeper (?) he was passing through the door in 
charge of the mastiff, a boy was running after with his hat, 
and people on the sidewalk were appropriating elevated 
places with spotless alacrity. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 205 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

TELLS, AMONG OTHER THINGS, WHAT THE ENGLISH THINK OF US. 

WE are all more or less bigoted until we travel. Our 
own institutions and customs grow to be considered 
the best institutions and the only true customs until we 
have opportunity to compare them with other customs and 
institutions. All that we hear — and this is to both prepare 
and inform you — is not exactly true. I have shown that all 
the English are not morose, sullen, and exclusive ; and I 
have tried to show as many as I have come in contact with 
that the American people are not wholly boors or assassins, 
— the only two classes many English recognize in America. 

I have claimed that the average English woman is not so 
tastefully dressed as the average American woman. 

I am told here that the average English woman is superior 
in dress to her American sister, in that she dresses plainly; 
while the American woman arrays herself in flashy colors, 
and sports a swell air. 

Does she? 

The swell American woman dresses richly, as her husband 
or father well knows, but not flashy. 

And, really, is a man in broadcloth and kids inferiorly 
dressed to the man in blue jean and dog-skin gloves ? Blue 
jean and dog-skin are the plainer of the two suits. It is not 
the quahty of the goods, but their style of making up and 
wearing them. 



206 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

I am proud to think, that, while our American woman 
dresses in high-priced goods, she shows admirable taste in 
selecting and combining the colors ; and there is no class of 
women, unless it is the English and Esquimaux, less open 
to the offence of tawdry apparel. 

There is a* plainness that is too decided to be tasteful. 

And perhaps, if the matter were sifted down very closely, 
it would be found that the women of the middle classes in 
America dress at less cost than the same class in England. 
The English woman does not think she is dressed up unless 
she has on a silk gown. Silk costs much less here than it 
does in America, to be sure ; but this is offset by the fact of 
wages being much less here than there. 

The English err in some other things regarding us, but 
pardonably, I believe. It is the style of American journalism, 
especially in the Far West, to exaggerate : it is also its style 
to jest on tragic subjects. These exaggerations and jests 
are readily seized upon by English journals as illustrative of 
our characteristics, and sowed broadcast among their people. 
It is the misfortune of the English not to understand an 
American joke. The fatal consequence can be imagined. 
They believe of all America just as the people of the Eastern 
States believe of the Territories and California, when, if the 
truth were known, there is less cutting and slashing in the 
Far West than in the Far East. 

An able school-teacher in Norfolk asked me the other day 
if all American gentlemen did not have either a pistol or 
knife concealed about their person. 

In the estimation of those who have not seen him, a full- 
blooded American is a sort of perambulating arsenal, con- 
stantly shedding bullets, bowies, and torpedoes. 

The predisposition of the untravelled EngHsh to believe 
that American ladies are lacking in refinement is materially 
aggravated by an English playwright, who has written " An 
American Lady," which is rendered nightly to large and 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 20/ 

appreciative audiences at tlie Criterion Theatre in London. 
The American lady thus exhibited is hoidenish, slangy, mas- 
culine, swaggering, bullying, and indescribably offensive. 

I could readily see by the expressions of those in the 
audience near to me that they accepted the character as a 
very fair representation of an American lady. 

An EngHsh woman on making a call dons her best, which 
is considered as a compliment to the person called upon. 
On receiving calls, she takes equal care not to do her best, 
for fear she may excel her caller, which would be a dis- 
courtesy. 

There is a genuine delicacy of feeling in this custom. 

Whatever the English may believe of our institutions and 
customs, many of them have ennobhng ideas of money- 
making in America. 

Numbers have left here for America with a view to making 
a fortune in three or four years without much effort, and 
returning to live in a castle with hot and cold water on every 
floor. 

Where are they? 

There are others who fall into the other extreme, and I 
have been very much edified by intelligent but rather lengthy 
disquisitions on the valuelessness of our money. 

Here, where the money is hard gold and silver and obese 
copper, the currency is looked upon with a great deal of 
curiosity ; and people are much surprised to learn that a few 
trifles are still purchasable with it in America. 

A man can conveniently carry around with him a thousand 
dollars of our money, I have been told ; but a man with a 
thousand dollars of the current money of England in his 
pocket would have to be lifted about with a derrick. 

But there is no doubt that it is frequently a mistake for 
the English working-man to go to America. Our labor- 
market is overstocked, and our labor is much different from 
what it is here. 



208 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

An American manufacturer of agricultural machinery, who 
has good custom here, contemplated a branch factory ; but 
the experiment proved a failure. He found and confessed, 
that, with the higher price of iron in his own country, he 
could make the machines there, and pay the shipments here, 
for less money than it cost to manufacture in England. In 
the States he got the wood cheaper ; but the main item was 
in the labor. American labor cost more primarily ; but the 
Yankee mechanic did double the work in the same hours. 

From what I have seen on the farm and in the shops and 
mills, I judge that the English workman does more talking, 
and less work, than his American brother ; and a great deal 
of time is lost in stepping out for beer. 

The wages of mechanics in England vary, like those in 
America, according to the market. 

In the country they get from seventy-five cents to a dollar 
and a quarter a day, and in the city from a dollar to a dollar 
and seventy-five cents. 

This is somewhat less than American wages : but it must 
be taken into consideration that many of the necessaries of 
life cost less here ; and a very good breastpin can be got 
for a quarter. Land will average well in price with that in 
New England ; but the mechanics of England are not land- 
holders. They universally rent; and rents are less here, 
startling as is the statement, than in New England and the 
Middle States. 

I saw a very pretty two-story house, with an acre and a 
half of very highly-cultivated garden, and an acre of pastu- 
rage with abundance of stabling, rent for two hundred and 
fifty dollars per annum ; and it was within two miles and a 
half of a flourishing city. It was not an exceptional case. 

Taxes are high ; but they are mostly the local rates. It 
requires money to keep their roads in the magnificent con- 
dition for which they are famed, and to take care of their 
poor as generously as they do. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 209 

In Norfolk County, the chief agricultural district, the rates 
are about five per cent, of which the government levy is but 
one-fifth. England's debt is immense ; but England's re- 
sources are still more immense. 

The man who rents can pay the rates and taxes on the 
property, and thus vote : without so doing he cannot handle 
the ballot. These rates and taxes are about one-quarter the 
rent, and are deducted therefrom. 

Suppose, for instance, a man's rent is a hundred dollars : 
the assessment is, therefore, twenty-five dollars ; and, by tak- 
ing the responsibility of it, he gets his lease at seventy-five 
dollars per annum. If the rates decrease in any year during 
the lease, he saves money : if they increase, he loses. 

Many prefer to go without the ballot to incurring this risk. 

The mechanic in the provincial towns who earns one dol- 
lar a day will comfortably support his wife and two children, 
and save twenty-five dollars in the year. 

This will give you a comprehensive view of the situation 
in this tax-oppressed and down-trodden country. I have 
been very particular to inquire into the condition of the 
working-people, because I have been taught from infancy 
that the acme of taxation was reached here, and that every 
necessary of life was taxed almost beyond reach of the com- 
mon people. 

By conversation with all classes, I learn that there is not 
that universal hungering to get out of England which Mr. 
Arch represents ; and when I go through the lanes, and 
look over the broad, bright green fields, and the blossoming 
hedges, and the wonderfully trim homes smothered in ivy 
and climbing roses, I am glad of it. 

Ah ! indeed it is a beautiful country, — so beautiful, that 
even a poet might work in it. 

And such a tasty people they are about their homes ! I 
shall not be at any time surprised to find garlands crowning 
the dust-heaps of the streets. 



2IO ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

I have yet to see the yard that is not a bower of ivy and 
roses, while many of the humble places have a variety and 
abundance of flowers and shrubs that would dehght the most 
exacting horticulturist. 

And the ivy and holly grow spontaneously in every garden 
and along every wall ; while the broad sweep of lawn and 
park, and perspective of wooded avenues, on the estates of 
the wealthy squire or nobleman, are charming to a degree 
that is exhilarating. 

Why, even in that range of precipitous hills which lie be- 
tween Derby and Manchester, where the sides are so steep 
that you can almost see any one come in at the gate by 
looking up the chimney, stone walls laid up in masonry sur- 
round the humble homes, and roses fairly foam over their 
tops. 

Aside from its historical associations, England is worth 
coming a thousand miles to see. 

Almost every family has some relative in America, and I 
am frequendy asked about them. He is a poor Englishman 
indeed who hasn't a cousin in the States. 

Wherever I go, I am recognized as being an American. 
In the cars, on the stage-coach or omnibus, in the hotels or 
on the road, I daily hear, "You are from America, sir?" 
and then follows questioning about the people, their cus- 
toms, and the chances for money-making. 

Our mixed liquors and slang are never-failing subjects of 
interest to them. They have seen pictures of American bar- 
tenders mixing liquors by pouring them from one glass to 
the other, with the vessels as far apart as the hands can be 
extended ; and they don't understand it. 

They ask me if there are such drinks as brandy-smashes, 
claret-punches, gin-slings, and the like ; and when I tell them 
I am not quite sure, but think I have heard those things 
mentioned by worldly people in the States, they say, " Ah, 
how wonderful ! " 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 211 

I hope I haven't deceived these people. 

But when they press me to tell them why Americans call 
some of their drinks "coffin-makers," "soul-poisoners," and 
" dead-shots," I am compelled to admit that I never heard 
the terms before ; and then they look disappointed. 

They imagine that the miiversal channel for the expression 
of ideas is slang, and repeat much that they have heard, 
which possesses as much novelty to me as it does to them. 

They handle our slang about as artistically as they do our 
geography ; and, in this latter particular, they never seem to 
realize that Canada is not somewhere concealed within the 
United States. 

They call Michigan, Mitchygin ; and Connecticut, Connect- 
ty-cut. But the name of Chicago is their chief hold. Even 
the terrible fire was more merciful than are they. They 
complacently denominate it Cthi-ka-go, Cthi-cog-o, Chick-a- 
go, Chee-ag-o ; but the favorite rendering is She-caggy. 

I was conducted over Christ Hospital by a young English- 
man who saw that I was an American, and, being acquainted 
with the place, kindly offered to give me all necessary infor- 
mation. 

He said he had a brother in America, who was here on a 
visit last summer, and from whom he learned much that was 
valuable and strengthening in the way of slang. He felt quite 
proud of the advantages he enjoyed. I could see that plainly 
enough. He frequently turned from an elaborate painting, 
an ancient wall, or a fine monument, to show off his 
accompHshments from America. • 

He told me in a confidential whisper that he had a pair 
of pants made with a pocket in behind, "just as they do in 
America;" and was very anxious that I should go around to 
his house, about four miles distant, and see them. 

I was fairly consuming with anxiety to see the gorgeous 
breeches ; but an engagement prevented, and I reluctantly 
decHned the invitation. 



212 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

I have been obliged to give up carrying my handkerchief 
in the hip-pocket. The operation of drawing it forth, and 
restoring it to its place, made me altogether too conspicuous 
for comfort. 

But I was speaking of taxes. 

The man who neither owns nor rents property pays no 
taxes. It is neither every body nor every thing that is taxed. 

The last government removed the duties from several arti- 
cles of necessary consumption. 

If a man owns a carriage, he pays a tax upon it of three 
dollars and seventy-five cents if it is a two-wheel, and of five 
dollars and twenty-five cents if it is a four-wheel conveyance. 
Some of the articles taxed in our country are taxed here : 
others that we tax they do not. There is no duty on watches, 
jewelry, or musical instruments. An EngHshman who owns 
a gun pays two dollars and fifty cents for the privilege ; and, 
if he wants to enjoy the pleasure of hunting, he pays seventy- 
five cents a year. If he is no better shot than many of the 
Nimrods who hover about Danbury, that seventy-five cents 
is a dead loss. 

The rate of interest here is about five per cent. 

This is a tax-ridden and down-trodden country ; but the 
people who live here and bend to the yoke have an unpleas- 
ant habit of looking healthy and happy. It isn't right. 

And then clothes can be bought here for one-half the 
price asked in America, and daily there is presented the 
astonishing spectacle of the citizens of a free and prosperous 
country coming to this oppressed land to buy their clothes. 

It is aivful. 

But we have some advantages. We have plenty of ice 
and oysters, two very rare luxuries here. As high as twelve 
cents a pound is paid for ice in some parts of England ; 
and as for oysters, they are nowhere. Their oysters are 
small, and less palatable than ours ; but they pay from thirty- 
six to eighty-five cents a dozen for them. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 213 

The English oyster puts on a great many " lugs," I think. 

But what can be said of a country that is without peanuts ? 
In the whole length and breadth of this fair land there is not 
a single peanut. Think, if you can grasp the thought, of a 
country hoary with history, and glorified with romance, pass- 
ing over the cycles of centuries without peanuts. 

I shouldn't have thought it could do it. 

I have not seen a pair of boots since I have been in Eng- 
land. Shoes are the universal article of foot-wear ; and those 
•pulled around by the laborers are thickly studded with star- 
ing nail-heads. Eight ounces of these nails are frequently 
used in a pair of shoes, and some pairs used by miners 
have from a pound and a half to two pounds of these iron 
nails in them. 

A favorite fashion with the ladies is wearing black or lead- 
colored stockings — I am told. 

And yet there seems to be about as much marrying here 
as in America. 



214 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



AN APPALLING CUSTOM. 



THE extent to which feeing is carried on in Europe, 
especially in the United Kingdom of Great Britain, 
is something extraordinary ; and I propose in this chapter to 
speak at length of the system. The American traveller first 
runs against the custom on board of the steamer that brings 
him over. He fees his steward, the "boots," his waiter, and 
anybody who may be handy to him as he is disembarking. 
When he gets ashore a boy calls a cab for him, and charges 
twelve cents for the service. At the hotel the hall porter has 
a trifle for taking in his luggage. The next morning he pro- 
ceeds on his way, after feeing the waiter who brought him 
his food, the " boots " who blacked his shoes, and the hotel 
porter who sees that his luggage is again mounted on the 
cab. Arriving at the station, a railway porter officiously 
hands him out, sees that the trunk is properly labelled to its 
destination, and accompanies him to the carriage-door, for 
obvious reasons. If he wishes a compartment by himself, 
he gives the guard or conductor twenty-five cents ; and others 
who embark along the line have to stand some squeezing 
before the dispenser of twenty-fiye cents is troubled with 
company. He should not complain of this expenditure, and 
does not ; but it is rough on the other passengers, and is 
pernicious without reserve. It was some httle time before I 
could pluck up the necessary courage to tamper with a rail- 
way guard. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 215 

In appearance he does not invite confidence, being 
dressed in blue, with a gold or silver band about his coat- 
collar, which gives him that austerity of expression which is 
so peculiar to our conductors. The idea of approaching 
this dignified official with, an attempt to warp him from the 
line of duty with a shilling is so preposterous to the new- 
comer, that it takes some time to conform to it. Imagine 
any one offering one of our conductors twenty-five cents for 
special privileges on the train ! The glance he would re- 
ceive would glue his vitals hermetically together. But the 
American conductor generally receives more than six dollars 
a week, and can afford to glance. 

Railway guards are a good deal like that noble animal the 
horse. They know their friends. When they come across 
a traveller who gives them a shilling for securing him a com- 
partment to himself, they mark him well ; and, the next time 
he comes along, he doesn't have to ask for the privilege again. 
He receives a sweet smile worth a mint of wealth to the 
heart of a stranger, and is hurried to a solitary compartment, 
where he is assured that he can take a little comfort with 
has pipe, the information being inundated with significant 
winks. (Tableau, — shilling.) It is astonishing the number 
of favors a shilling will obtain from one of those uniformed 
satellites. But such favors are not always begrudged. 

Every station has its railway porters, who are hired to see 
after passengers and their luggage. They meet the incom- 
ing train, as I have already stated, and attend to the wants 
of the passengers. They are paid three or four dollars a 
week to be around, and the passengers quite frequently pay 
them for their help. This custom of feeing railway porters 
for putting your luggage on a cab, or transferring your hand- 
parcels to another train, has one bad but very natural result, 
— the first-class passengers receive the first and best atten- 
tion. On the arrival of the train, it is noticeable that the 
door to every first-class compartment is supplied with a por- 



2l6 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

ter. Those who fail to secure this drop back on the sec- 
ond-class, leaving few, if any, to take care of the third-class. 
The help of the porter is quite frequently worth the fee : but 
a bad practice is fostered, and the recipient is demorahzed 
by receiving two payments for one service ; that is, if a 
railway porter can be demoralized by any thing. Besides, 
the third-class passenger is often left to struggle with his 
bundles as he best can ; although, in paying his fare, he con- 
tributes to the support of the man who has left him for fairer 
skies. But that is human nature. 

Hotels and restaurants are the most important centres of 
the system. In the former, any servant who has any thing 
to do with you expects a fee. When you inquire for your 
bill is the signal for the attack. This is the reason, perhaps, 
that some do not inquire for their bills. There is the cham- 
ber-maid just outside your door in the passage, on the 
stairs is the "boots," and in the hall the porter; and yet 
the people here wonder that Americans carry pistols. 

Feeing is not a modern nuisance, but has generations to 
sanction and aggravate it. It got so bad a few years ago, 
and the complaint against it was so loud and general, that 
the proprietors of hotels and restaurants took the matter in 
their own hands, and hit upon a remedy : it was to charge 
attendance in the bill at so much a day or meal, and thus 
save the guests all annoyance. Thackeray never perpetrated 
any thing equal to it. The charge for attendance at a hotel 
is from twenty-five cents to thirty-six cents a day for each 
person ; at restaurants, from four to six cents the meal each 
person. This was supposed to be done to secure the ser- 
vants as well as to save the guests. It was an ingenious 
stroke. The attendance-money is put into the pocket of 
the proprietor, whereas formerly it went to the servants ; and 
the latter, with the importunate lines in their faces as deep 
drawn as ever, continue to confront the guests. And why 
not? 



t 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 21/ 

The result of this change has been to add to the revenue 
of the landlord, and to subtract from the already under- 
paid servant. The landlord, with the wages of his servant 
unincreased by the innovation, has no more right to this 
money than he has to any other property of the guest. The 
complaint of which it is the result was not levelled against 
the receptacle of the fees, but the payment of them. The 
reform was supposed by a credulous public to be made in 
the interest of the travellers, not in behalf of landlords; 
and, as there has been no reduction in the hotel and restau- 
rant charges, thoughtful people are anxious to know by what 
process of reasoning the proprietors justify the additional 
item of attendance in the bills. I said to the landlord one 
day,— 

"Why is attendance charged guests?" 

"To regulate feeing, which had become an abuse," he 
promptly^ replied. 

"What right had servants to demand fees anyway?" I 
next asked. 

" Because that was a portion of the revenue attached to 
their place," he said. 

" It went to make up their wages, then ? " 

"Oh, yes!" 

"Does it now?" 

He thought it looked very much like rain. 

Under the old regime it was feeing the waiters ; under the 
new it is feeing the landlord ; and, in the case of a guest 
who doesn't like to appear " small," it is feeing both. 

Some of these English people pay their bills with the at- 
tendance charge, and let that end it ; but the most of them, 
and all Americans, fee as well as pay, and find they are bet- 
ter served for so doing. You occasionally see on a hotel- 
bill "No gratuities to the servants," which looks well enough 
in print. That is the reason they put it there, I suspect. 

In the matter of fees the servants of the hotels and res- 



2l8 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW.- 

taurants ought not to be censured. I do not blame them, 
and cannot, although the system by which they thrive is fre- 
quently an irritation difficult to describe. But the remedy 
is not the one now employed; and no attempt whatever, 
short of paying the help adequate wages, will avail to abate 
the evil. The deficiency is now made up by the guest; 
while the landlord, who has been amply paid for his accom- 
modation, disgracefully escapes the responsibility. 

When I say "amply paid," I speak advisedly. Compare, 
for instance, the charges of a first-class English with the 
same kind of American hotel. The latter charges from four 
to five dollars per day (including all " extras"), and presents 
a variety of dishes entirely unknown to the English hotel, 
and consequently gives the guest more enjoyment and better 
satisfaction than he can obtain in any English hostelry. 

The English charges are, — 

Breakfast, sixty cents ; dinner, a dollar and twenty cents ; 
tea, sixty cents ; bedroom, forty-eight cents : total, two dol- 
lars and eighty-eight cents. 

Add twenty-eight cents as a premium on gold, and you 
have a first cost of three dollars and sixteen cents per day, 
or what would be equal in America, with its market and labor 
prices, to full five dollars per day. Now, on top of all this, 
comes thirty-six cents a day for attendance. 

So, without the attendance-money, the English landlord is 
receiving a larger sum than his American contemporary, and 
giving less in return for it. 

I have said I do not blame the servants as being respon- 
sible for the feeing nuisance. Let us see how they share in 
the extortion. 

At one hotel I staid several weeks. I paid thirty-six cents 
a day for attendance. The "boots" was an elderly party. 
He received two dollars a week^ and boarded himself. The 
female servant who waited at the table got one dollar and 
twenty-five cents a week, and board; the chambermaid, 






ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 219 

twenty-five cents less than the waiter. The bar-maid, who 
managed the house, received two dollars and fifty cents and 
her meals. Do you wonder those people looked for fees ? 
What would the "boots" have done had the guests acted 
on their rights, and allowed the thirty-six cents which each 
paid per day to the landlord to have discharged their obliga- 
tion in the matter of attendance? 

The hotel had a livery attached. I hired a trap for three 
hours' use, with a driver. When we got back, I gave the 
driver a shilling. It is rarely I part with my money ; but I 
had had a pleasant drive, and felt generous and good-natured. 
What was my surprise and disgust when the man asked me 
for another shilling ! He had no right to demand a penny, 
of course, being in the employ of the hotel proprietor, to 
whom I was to make my payment for the trap ; but I gave 
him the extra shilling, and sat up two-thirds the night as- 
signing him to various places in the dim and uncertain future. 
Several days later he took me out again for a half-day; and, 
when we returned, I left him without any reward. I wanted 
to see what he would do. He came after me the next morn- 
ing, with hat in his hand, and knuckling his forehead with 
due respect. 

I looked at him with unconcealed dislike ; for he was a 
leech of the first water. 

" I come, sir, to see about the hire, please, for driving you 
out yesterday, sir." 

"Do you own the trap?" I asked in a voice of illy-sup- 
pressed disgust. 

" No, sir : I only drives it." 

"Exactly; and what is your charge?''' said I, with sting- 
ing emphasis on the last word. 

" Three shillings, if you please, sir." 

Was the man mad ? I looked at him in a sort of stupor 
for full a minute. There he stood, with his old hat in his 
hand, his rusty coat looking more rusty than ever, and his 



220 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

hair tumbled in all directions. He would get this three 
shillings out of me, and then laugh in his patched sleeve at 
my greenness ; and Saturday night he would receive from 
his employer payment for that day he drove me, and I 
would reimburse the landlord for his expenditure. 

I paid him the three shillings with clinched teeth; and 
after breakfast I went to the bar-maid, and said to her, — 

" Who is that old fellow who drove me out yesterday? " 

" He is one of the stable-help, sir." 

" So I thought. And how much does he get a week? " 

" He don't get any wages, sir." 

" W-h-a-t?'' 

" No, sir : he is not paid wages. He helps about the stable 
and yard ; and, when gentlemen hire a trap, he drives them 
out, and what they pay him supports him." 

About two-thirds distracted, I rushed out of the bar in 
quest of the old chap ; and, when I found him, I shook his 
hand till his neck loosened, and told him how sorry I was to 
have been so cross with him for simply trying to get his liv- 
ing, and that he was a proper old boy an}^way. In the ex- 
uberance of my remorse I even called him a zymosimeter. 

It subsequently occurred to me that he might not know 
what a zymosimeter was : so I returned, and explained to 
him that it was nothing injurious. Speaking of hotel-wages 
reminds me that the lady who has almost the entire charge 
of one of the leading hotels in Glasgow receives the munifi- 
cent sum of four dollars and ninety cents a week. What 
of her salary she does not use in building a cathedral she 
intends devoting to neat bronze drinking-fountains for public 
use. Such a woman as that is an honor to her sex and to 
Glasgow. 

In many of the prominent hotels and restaurants the 
" boots " or the head waiter not only receives no salary at 
all, but pays a premium for his place, and trusts to the fees 
for a living, and never fails of success. The same guests pay 
the landlord for attendance ( ? ) . Do you see ? 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 221 

An English landlord would think it the height of absurdity 
if he should find in his grocery or draper bill an item for the 
clerk's attendance upon his purchases ; and yet the draper 
or grocer could as sensibly do this as he does. 

But feeing is not entirely confined to the annoyance of 
the travelling public. It permeates every walk of life, and 
exhibits itself in ways unique, and startling to the stranger. 
A gentleman showed me over his extensive works in Scot- 
land. In one branch of them he committed me to the more 
intelligent care of the foreman. Closing the observation, 
I was puzzled to know whether to offer the foreman a fee. 
I did not wish to appear " small " in his eyes by not doing 
it, and yet dreaded to run the risk of offending him by mak- 
ing the offer. In desperation I extended the silver. It was 
covered with a promptness that surprised me. I visited an 
industrial school. I had a letter of introduction to the man- 
ager. He showed me the workings of the institution. When 
he bowed me out, I showed silver. One of the inmates 
stood near us. The manager turned his back on him, made 
a feint of shaking hands with me, and "scooped " in the fee. 
These cases are not exaggerations. 

It doesn't pay to exaggerate when you are constantly 
travelling, and liable at any time to a fatal accident. 

It may be asked why I offered the manager of the indus- 
trial school a fee. It is just like some people to put such a 
question, and never think of asking why the manager did 
not refuse it. 

It is even customary to fee the servants of the friends you 
visit ; so much the custom, in fact, that a lady- writer in one of 
the London papers attempts to establish the amounts which 
should be given. It is not said how much this demand on the 
guest improves the tone of the hospitality he receives : perhaps 
it cannot be estimated. If such an order of things prevailed 
in America, I fancy there would be less of visiting by affec- 
tionate city people to dear country cousins in the summer 
months. 



222 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

A great evil in this country is the large surplus of servants 
in employ. I visited a party in Scotland who keeps twenty- 
one servants. These are, a butler, who attends to buying for 
the table; an under butler, who gives the articles to the 
cook j 'a porter, who stays in the hall, and catches flies with 
a dexterity that is almost supernatural ; a cook and an assist- 
ant cook; a housekeeper, who looks after the linen; four 
chambermaids ; a waiter ; two scullery-maids for rough work 
in the kitchen ; an errand-boy ; a coachman, footman, and 
hostler for the stables ; gardener and three assistants. One- 
half the number would be amply sufficient to do the work. 
When the family are in the city, four servants are left in 
charge of the country-house. What four servants find to 
keep them busy in an unoccupied three-story building is better 
imagined than described. 

Less servants and better pay would prove a welcome reform. 

In business communications the system of fees is no less 
rampant. An English friend owns a brick-yard. Driving 
out with him one day, we stopped where a building was going 
up, his brick being used in the construction. He had a 
short chat with the builder, and was about to drive away, 
when the latter said, — 

" This is pretty dry work, Mr. ." 

My friend took out a pocket-book and gave the respectable 
contrac^r two shillings, and we then went on. 

In answer to a question, my companion explained that this 
was a toll upon him, which he was forced to pay, or lose the 
job of supplying the brick to this or any building this con- 
tractor may erect. The contractor himself was not the buyer. 
He did the work by the day, as is the custom in England, the 
owner furnishing the material at the contractor's suggestion. 
He could thus turn the trade into the market that paid him 
best, without regard to his employer's interests. 

If a man came to his yard for a barrow of bricks, he 
expected and demanded the price of a glass of beer, or 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 223 

he would take his barrow to some yard where he could 
get it It was immaterial to him what the bricks cost, as he 
did not have to pay for them. And this despicable sys- 
tem extends more or less to nearly every branch of 
business. 



224 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

SKIPS FROM THE CAB TO THE HEARSE. 

WHILE on the subject of extortion, I should hke to 
take another pull with my ancient foe, the English 
cabman. Whatever his fares may be as arranged by law, he 
has the right to claim. It is only when he demands more 
than that amount (and that is pretty much all the while) that' 
he comes under the same head as the driver of a barrow of 
bricks, a contractor for building, and the proprietor of a hotel. 
Foreigners are his principal prey ; and as they at home have 
little to do with hackmen, doing the bulk of their riding in 
street-cars and omnibuses, and are wholly dependent on 
the hackman when here, they become sensible of his'excesses, 
and find themselves constantly on the aggressive against him. 
Thus arises much of the loud complaint against the class 
from our people, who are apparently not aware that the 
American hackman is a greater scamp than the English cabby, 
to say nothing of his offensive bearing. 

A shilling for a mile for one or two persons, and a sixpence 
for each additional mile, is the highest charge here. The cab- 
man will get an extra sixpence out of you, if possible ; and, 
once in a while, will try for a shilling. I have paid sixteen 
shillings for the use of a hack to be taken a mile and a half, 
and a friend of mine was charged twenty shilHngs for the 
same distance. It is to be sincerely regretted that both of 
these instances occurred in New York, and not in London. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 225 

The law which regulates the English cab-charges knows 
more than I about the matter. But still the charge appears 
to be a small sum, when it is understood that the cabman 
pays from six to ten shillings a day for the use of the 
establishment, and must drive that number of fares before 
he can begin to make any thing for himself. They generally 
bite me, and it makes me mad enough to knock their heads 
off; and yet I am sorry for the poor devils. They have got 
to fleece somebody, I suppose, to make both ends meet. 
Still it would be much better if poor people did not have two 
ends. 

But they don't scorch me so badly as they used to do. I 
have played a march on them by donning a pair of English 
breeches. These breeches are light-colored, and cling so 
tightly to my body and legs, that, every time I bend over, the 
people in the next house know it. When I engage a cab, 
I bring my legs conspicuously to the front. When the driver 
looks into my open and ingenuous countenance, he is tempted 
to charge a sixpence ; but, on glancing down at my legs, he 
takes another thought, and unhesitatingly compromises on a 
threepence. The money I thus save I give to the South-sea 
Islanders — when I meet them. 

But this is not a pleasant subject. Let us talk of funerals. 

The English fairly spread themselves in matters of woe. 
Their hearses are mountains of gloom. The body is heavy, 
cumbersome, and agonizingly black. They are not lighted 
off with sheets of ghttering French plate and silver orna- 
ments. They have no bay-windows. On top are from six 
to eight three-story plumes, presenting a forest of waving 
gloom. Among the plumes are perched quite frequently 
the pall-bearers, dressed in petrifying black, with heavy 
bands of mourning about their . hats, and streaming down 
their backs. The driver is similarly arrayed. Accompany- 
ing the hearse there is one coach, and perhaps two. They 
are mourning-carriages, built with all the trappings of woe ; 



226 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

and/ should cremation obtain, they would be a dead loss to 
the owner, as they are not by nature adapted to any other 
but the most lugubrious work. They have no such funeral 
processions as we do, formed of all sorts of vehicles, from 
the crafty hack to the effervescing buck-board. None but 
mourning-coaches are permitted in the line, and rarely but 
one of those. Neither is there a procession on foot in the 
city funerals. The gait of the sombre cavalcade forbids 
pedestrianism. You'd hardly believe it, especially from see- 
ing the amount of woe in the appearance of the carriage ; 
but the London funerals trip along through the crowded 
thoroughfares at a smart trot. It is a ghastly spectacle. 

In the country the custom is somewhat different. Proces- 
sions of friends precede the hearse, the men wearing the 
streaming bands of- mourning about their hats. I witnessed 
a rural funeral recently. First came the doctor, and with 
him the apothecary, — as a sort of accomphce, I suspect ; 
next came the undertaker, and by his side was the draper 
who sold the material for the mourning-garments ; next six 
pall-bearers (who do not bear the body, that being done by 
■men engaged by the undertaker), and after them friends of 
the deceased. The hearse did not pass into the churchyard. 
The coffin was removed at the gate, placed on a rack, cov- 
ered with a black-velvet pall, and taken up on the shoulders 
of the hired bearers, who carried it to the church, and, after 
the service, to the grave. The coffin was plain, and of 
oak, which appears to be the national wood for every use but 
fuel. There was no rough box : rough boxes are rarely used 
here, and some undertakers never heard of them. I was 
asking one of those dismal people, the other day, the price 
of coffins ; and he said he could put me up a tidy article for 
fifty shillings. I told him I guess I would wait until he got in 
his spring styles. I am sorry now I didn't take it, as it was 
a marvellously cheap coffin at the price. All the boxes are 
made after the chilling pattern of a century ago. The coun- 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 22/ 

try undertakers are mostly joiners and builders, and keep 
no stock on hand : those who do have a dreary monotony. 
The English undertaker seems to have sunk into a distress- 
ing lethargy. He isn't that sharp, nervous, cheerful individ- 
ual who caters to dead people in the Rocky Mountains. 
You don't see in the windows of the undertaking estabhsh- 
ments here such alluring notices as " Closing out cheap to 
make room for new stock ; " " Coffins, caskets, and cabi- 
nets .below cost for the next thirty days ; " " The largest 
stock of coffins in town for the holiday trade ; " " Call and 
examine before purchasing elsewhere ; " " No charge for 
showing goods ; " &c. 

London has a " Refomaed Funeral Association." It pro- 
poses to relieve the poor and middle classes from the heavy 
expense which they are under in intending ■ their dead in the 
outside cemeteries. A few years ago the interment of the 
dead was prohibited in the city graveyards, and cemeteries 
were constructed outside. From the centre of that enor- 
mous city to the nearest outside " city of the dead " is a 
distance of several miles, and funeral-expenses have borne 
quite heavy on the poorer classes. I would have thought 
this act put a stop to Westminster- Abbey sepulchre ; but it 
doesn't. 

In Norfolk County they have a hearse and coach com- 
bined; the place for the coffin being at the front, and a 
place in the rear for four mourners. In another section of 
the country the same result is obtained by a sort of carryall, 
capable of seating twenty people, with a platform under- 
neath, slung to the axles, for the body. This, I imagine, 
would have the appearance of a picnic, and impart a bright 
and cheerful aspect to the occasion. It is called a " funeral 
'bus." In the part of the country where it prevails — Shef- 
field and whereabouts — they have "mutes." These are 
chaps who carry staffs and say nothing, and are paid for 
hanging around and looking sad. They wear streamers, and 



228 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

are the genuine "trappings of woe." The idea of hiring any- 
one to feel bad because of your death must be the very 
height of feUcity. 

Another feature of Enghsh funerals, and a not always 
acceptable one, is the obligation upon every one attending 
to wear black. It is not always possible to borrow black 
garments, and it is a grain or two beyond reason to expect 
the neighbor to go to the expense of buying a wardrobe for 
the occasion. 

In our country the funeral generally occurs the third day 
of the death : here the body is frequently kept a week, and 
sometimes eight or ten days ; seldom, if ever, less than five 
days, unless in the case of a contagious disease. The Eng- 
lish don't intend to bury their friends alive for lack of time 
to prove them dead. They think our haste is indecent, and 
I don't contradict them. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 229 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



IN A GROCER'S CELLAR. 



WE don't look for much growth hi the old country. 
We read the figures furnished by immigration, and 
deduce therefrom the impression that we receive the surplus 
population of the mother-land, and that the cities which go 
to make it up remain at about the same figure. We have 
always known London to be a colossal city ; but the great 
bulk of Americans (including myself) do not realize that it is 
a city of enormous vitality. Of its size, no one, not even a 
Londoner, has a proper idea. And yet this city, vast as it 
is, is growing at a marvellous rate. Its population is sup- 
posed to be nearly four millions, and it is growing every hour. 
It is not a mushroom growth, although the figures appear so ; 
but it is constructed as soHdly as that portion of it which 
took form under the careful and tedious surveillance of the 
fogies of the sixteenth century. 

Approaching the suburbs in any direction from the heart, 
new streets and new buildings are found. Where were fields 
and hedges five years ago are now paved streets and com- 
pact walls of masonry, with the necessary policemen and 
hydrants. 

One of the Chicago cities of England is Leicester. It is 
in the red-brick region. I mean, by that, that the brick used 
in the construction of its houses is as red as that which we 
use. Leicester and the neighboring city of Derby are built 



230 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

with this clay; and, the moment an American strikes the 
neighborhood, he assumes a pleased expression. It is rarely 
he meets such a bright red anywhere else in English building. 

Twenty-five years ago, Leicester was not half so large as 
it now is. Its present population is a hundred and ten 
thousand. I believe there are one or two cities in the 
United States which have not doubled their census in the 
past quarter of a century. 

Leicester is, consequently, more modern than many of its 
contemporaries ; but still it can show by occult evidence 
that it was a place of some importance several hundred 
years before Edward the Confessor made his appearance. 
In fact, Leicester combines the extreme modern with the 
extreme antique. 

In the depressed portion of the city is a creek or river, 
neither deep nor wide. Over this is a low bridge, strong and 
substantial, as they build every thing in this country, but not 
noticeable. It is called the Bow Bridge. I do not know how 
old the bridge is ; but it is certain that its arches stood here 
four hundred years ago, as at that time the bridge became 
conspicuous in tradition. We see a great many old structures, 
in travelling through England, of which there is not a scrap 
of information as to the date of origin. ^ 

Over this bridge, four hundred years ago, Richard the 
Third marched his armies to the fated field of Bosworth. 
When he rode over it, he struck his heel against one end of 
the parapet ; and an old woman who observed the incident 
prophesied that his head would be broken against the same 
stone on his return. He was defeated on Bosworth field, 
and killed there ; and the excited people of Leicester saw 
the naked body of their monarch brought across that bridge 
on the back of a horse. All Leicester had combined its re- 
sources for days to make merry in the presence of their king, 
and now he was brought back to them a naked and outraged 
corpse. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 23 1 

I wish I had the power to describe the wail of agony which 
came up from their acliing and bleeding hearts at the sight 
of this horrid spectacle. Only they didn't wail : they didn't 
wail worth a cent. 

In fact, so careless were they in bringing in the anointed 
body, that the head, hanging down the horse's side, struck 
the stone in the parapet that his heel had grazed, and the 
skull was broken. 

Richard was no longer king : he was a bleeding, dust- 
covered, disgraced corpse. And these Leicester people 
dragged around his body in derision ; and they threw it 
over the bridge into the little river, and left it there for eel- 
bait. 

It was very quiet and beautiful by the old bridge jn the 
summer afternoon that I stood there. The houses about it 
were old and httle, with drooping lattices and moss-grown 
roofs. The scene was very quiet, very cosey, and most beau- 
tiful. The house that stood at one end of the bridge, and 
part way in the water, had an inscription on one of its stones 
to this effect : — 

" Near this spot he the remains of Richard the Third, the 
last of the Plantagenets. 1485." 

That was a long while ago to die. 

While we were looking at the place, and speculating on 
the probabihties of Mr. Plantagenet's whereabouts, a Leices- 
ter physician drove along with whom my party were ac- 
quainted, and stopped to spill a little information in regard 
to the weather. We learned from him, that a few months 
ago, when laborers were dredging out the stream, they came 
across the skeleton of a man. He heard of the discovery 
shortly after, and went to the workmen to get a sight of the 
bones, and perhaps preserve them for the local museum ; 
but they were gone. He beheved that it was the skeleton 
of the defeated and disgraced king, preserved until now by 
the chemical qualities of the bottom of the river. Some 



232 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

one else had entertained the same belief, and had taken the 
skeleton and shipped it up to the British Museum at Lon- 
don, where it is now doing duty in the Egyptian collecti<3n 
as one of the Pharaohs. When the English people find, a 
skeleton they can't explain, they send it to the British MuSv,e- 
um, and label it " Rameses the Third." 

The two most important features of the city, in the esti- 
mation of Leicester people, are two remnants of the occu- 
pation by the Romans. 

One of these relics I found in a comer grocery. My 
friend invited me in ; and I followed, thinking he had some 
business with the proprietor. It was a small grocery, with 
the proprietor and his wife, and a clerk in charge. My 
friend exchanged a few words with the proprietor, who 
lighted a candle and started for the cellar, followed by my 
companion, who beckoned to me. I pricked up my ears at 
this, and picked up my legs too, as I thought they were 
about to sample some old liquors. We went down into the 
cellar ; and the proprietor lighted a gas-jet in one corner, and 
then I saw a sight that made me catch my breath abruptly. 
It was the other relic left to Leicester by the Romans. It 
was the parlor-floor of one of their palaces. The light from 
the gas shone down upon thousands of square bits of stones 
of various colors, set in mosaic, representing scores of dif- 
ferent patterns. It was very beautiful. The stones were set 
with wonderful skill, each joint being perfect, and the figures 
represented with marked fidelity. There were kegs of salt 
fish, and barrels of oil, and boxes of soap, &c., about the 
cellar, -r- a grotesque society for this elegant workmanship. 
The bit of floor was about eighteen feet square, and about 
three feet above the level of the cellar. Two sides of the 
square ran into the cellar-wall, and the full extent of the 
whole piece is not known. It may continue in the adjoining 
earth for several yards. 

It was discovered when digging the cellar ; and, its value 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 233 

being recognized, it was carefully preserved. There are por- 
tions of Roman flooring in the British Museum in London ; 
but they were brought from excavations in Italy ; and, al- 
though laid just as in the original, still they have lost, in 
their transfer, much of their interest. But this bit in the 
Leicester grocer's cellar is not only of general, but also of 
local interest. It is now exactly as it was laid two thousand 
years ago. It was formed just here by people who were 
standing just where we stand. And this cellar, which hasn't 
echoed to an excitement any more remarkable than that con- 
tained in the remarks of a clerk who incidentally raps his 
head against a beam, was once a blaze of light, and resound- 
ed to the merry shouts and gay laughter of revellers in 
togas and sandals. It is hard to realize it, and smell the 
oil and groceries at the same time. But it is so, thank 
Heaven ! 

The mosaic floor is some five or six feet below the street. 
Some very important changes have taken place in the world 
since this place was on a level with the street. 

That voracious institution, the British Museum, not satis- 
fied with robbing Leicester of its skeleton, is moving its 
grasping fingers toward this Roman floor. 

What Leicester should do is to buy the grocer out, con- 
vert the building into a sort of pavilion, publish a romance 
with plenty of love and poison in regard to it, and charge 
an entranced public a shilling a head for admittance. I 
throw out these suggestions in a perfectly disinterested man- 
ner, and Leicester is welcome to benefit herself by them 
without cost. 

One more incident, and I am done. P. T. Barnum was 
once here. He came to buy a suit of clothes. It is a re- 
markable coincidence that I bought clothes in Leicester. 
But the difference in the transaction, and which may border 
a trifle on the supernatural to some people, is, that he went 
there for clothes and didn't get them, and I didn't go there 



234 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

for clothes, but did get them. However, we will not say any- 
more about that, as I do not wish people to get the impres- 
sion that I aim to praise my own clothes. 

But this suit that Bamum went after belonged to the late 
Daniel Lambert. It is now in possession of the propri- 
etor of one of the Leicester papers. Daniel was a resi- 
dent of this city, and held his first levee here. He was a 
remarkably sensitive man, and felt offended by any reference 
to his size. Mr. Lambert was a whale on legs. A good idea 
of his enormous size is gained from this suit of clothes. It 
consists of a jacket, waistcoat, and a pair of pants. The 
pants at the waist are as large round as a railway turn-table ; 
but in length of legs they are a humiliating failure. The 
armlets to the vest, or waistcoat, look very much like tunnel 
openings ; and the pockets thereof are so large, that Tom 
Thumb, when here, stood comfortably in one of them. The 
wearer, had he carried a timepiece at all, would have been 
obliged to resort to a town-clock with an iron cable as a 
chain, and import his seals from the California coast. His 
pants were drawn on by a derrick ; but he was put into his 
boots with a pile-driver. Such was Mr. Lambert. 

And a mighty useful man in a house where they made 
their own carpets. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 235 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



THE HOME OF BUNYAN. 



I WAS at the national agricultural show near Bedford, 
when I became aware of the close vicinity of the little 
village of Elstow, where John Bunyan spent a good share 
of his life. Late in the afternoon I struck across the fields 
in the direction of the village, following what we call a cart- 
path in this direction. The path became less distinct as I 
proceeded ; and in a short time I found myself in front of 
a farm-gate leading into a rather extensive barn-yard, and 
somewhat oppressed by a suspicion of dogs. I didn't dare 
get over the gate, and there was nobody in sight. This was 
a delightful predicament. I spread out my legs, and peered 
between the bars of the gate in gloomy meditation. I had 
stood there some ten minutes, undecided what to do, when 
a woman appeared in the door at the other end of the yard, 
and, seeing me, ran back into the house. Immediately after, 
a man in a smock-frock and sadly-wrinkled corduroy pants 
came out, learned my errand, and, after eying me a few sec- 
onds, let me through the yard, and followed closely after me 
into the road at the front. 
I must get another hat. 

A short distance from this farm-house brought me in what 
struck me then, and will always remain in my memory, as 
being the quaintest village street I ever saw. There was no 
regularity in the width of the street, or the height or design 



236 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

of the buildings. Many of them had sharp gables, and 
little panes of glass, — forty of them to a window, — and 
sunken doorways, ^d projecting upper stories. There was 
not a modern feature to the entire avenue ; and the houses 
were built as closely together as if they were in the heart of 
a great city, instead of being in the midst of unlimited fields. 
I didn't count the buildings which go to make up the ancient 
village of Elstow ; but I am confident there were not more 
than fifty of them ; and, with but three exceptions, they were 
the habitations of the poor. A few steps down the street 
brought me opposite the public-house, as ancient and as 
stony as its fellows. The windows were of lattice-work, and 
swung on hinges. Those on the first floor were open, and 
a girl leaned part way out of one of them ; while two healthy- 
looking boys stood on the outside, and kept her from faUing 
out. On a bench the other side of the door sat two old 
men, both smoking, and dividing between themselves a pint 
tankard of ale. Learning from them that the house of 
Bunyan was still standing, and was a short distance down 
the street, I pressed on, and a moment later reached it. 

A not very pretentious shell is that which contained the 
germ of " Pilgrim's Progress." It stood where the street 
commenced to straggle into detached cottages of homely 
exterior, and low in size. It was a warm afternoon, and the 
door stood open. Over it was a board with the inscription, 
" Bunyan's Cottage." I stepped to the door, and looked in. 
It was a room about ten feet square. The furniture was 
excessively plain and cumbersome, as is to be found in the 
cottages of the English laborer. A woman forty or fifty 
years of age, and a girl about twenty years of age, were the 
only occupants of the room. It looked as little Hke a show- 
house as can be imagined. The work of the house went on 
without interruption : meat was fried, soup cooked, and 
bread made, without the least reference to the associations 
of the spot. Here Bunyan spent the greater part of his life ; 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 23/ 

and in the kitchen he has partaken of many a humble meal, 
eating his soup without a fork, and incidentally inquiring the 
particular " need of cooking things to death." 

The elder of the two women took me up stairs into the 
garret, and showed me the room where John slept, and pon- 
dered over the great question he was wrestling with. Then 
we returned to the kitchen, where I signed my name, and, 
being a trifle hungry, asked if I could have a pot of tea and 
bread and butter. I thought it would be something to tell 
of in a grocery, when I became an old man and full of rheu- 
matism and snuff, that I had eaten a meal of victuals where 
the youth Bunyan had taken his bread in his hand. There 
was an abundance of gooseberry-bushes in the garden ; and 
so I had a plate of the fruit with the tea and bread, and 
took them on a bench just outside the back-door. The 
bread was dark, and there was no milk for the tea, and the 
sugar for the berries was lumpy and hard ; but I straddled 
the bench, and chewed up the food and fruit, and gulped 
down the tea, as decorously as the hero himself could have 
done it, although I was far less deserving of it. While I was 
eating, I learned that the family took care of the cottage for 
the rent, and were in no wise descended from the famous 
preacher. The women were lace-workers, and the husband 
and father was a laborer. The younger of the two worked 
at her trade in the garden near to where I was sitting, and 
plied her needle with such marvellous dexterity, that I was 
fascinated into asking her how much a good lace-maker 
would earn in a day ; and she told me a half-crown, which is 
sixty-three cents. That ended the conversation, and I 
returned to my supper. 

Tliere is but little to learn of Bunyan's habits of life from 
the people of Elstow. They were born since he lived, and 
have preserved no traditions. I talked with my hostess and 
several old people of the village ; but they knew nothing of 
Bunyan : all they knew was Canada. Some one had left 



238 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

Elstow fifteen years ago for Canada, with hardly a penny in his 
pocket, and had just returned with ;^i 2,750, or nearly ^65,- 
000, and had bought Squire Wilson's place, and was making 
great improvements about it. These people I talked with 
had no especial feeling against Bunyan ; but they thought 
the time could be profitably employed in conversing about 
Canada. 

They never lived so close to Canada as I have. 

The church which Bunyan attended, with its belfry-tower 
standing by itself (the only instance of the kind I have seen), 
is a unique-looking fabric. It is built of clipped stone, and 
is fairly wrinkled with age. The belfry-tower I climbed to 
the summit, where I got a good view of the quaint village and 
the beautiful country around it. The roof was covered with 
lead, and the surface of the lead presented a new and most 
astonishing phase in the history of autography. It was cov- 
ered with diagrams of soles. There was not a square inch 
of that roof that was not thus marked. Many of the diagrams 
had the owners' names, residences, and dates inscribed with- 
in ; but the bulk of them were simply the skeleton lines of 
the size of the foot. I had already put my foot down against 
promiscuous autographing, and so had these people. It was 
the most delicate piece of sarcasm I ever saw. 

I told the sexton to get out of the way, as I was going 
down stairs ; and I went just as fast as my legs would carry 
me. 

From the belfry I passed into the church, and spent a half- 
hour gazing at its antique appearance. I found at the door, 
as I have found at the door of many of the older English 
churches, a box for contributions towards defraying the ex- 
pense of restoring the church. It needs restoring, does this 
old church of Elstow. The walls were broken in many 
places. The oaken seats — Bunyan's is pointed out — are 
seared and seamed by age, and mutilated by the active knives 
of the Httle boys of this and many preceding generations. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 239 

It is safe to believe that Bunyan's boyish knife contributed 
largely to this mutilation. Elstow Church has its effigies in 
marble, and also, hanging high up on the wall, the leather 
jacket and sheet-iron cap of Thomas Hillay, who went to 
Palestine to shake up the Saracens. Thomas himself wouldn't 
stand much shaking up at the present time, I fear. 



240 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

IN WHICH SHAKSPEARE IS SHOWN UP. 

STRATFORD, upon the River Avon, needs no particular 
mention, in that it is just hke other Enghsh villages. 
The stranger cannot fail to notice that it is strongly associat- 
ed with Shakspeare, as there is the Shakspeare hotel, and 
Shakspeare's stores, and Shakspeare's street, &c. 

I stopped at the Red Lion, it being the most presentable 
house. I was at once made aware that Washington Irving 
had stopped there. I had my breakfast the next morning in 
a little room on the first floor, which had- his name in brass 
letters on the door ; his picture was also on the wall ; also 
his autograph and volumes were on the stand. The chair in 
which he sat before the fire and meditated, and the poker 
with which he stirred up the fire, and the mug with which he 
accelerated his meditations, were also there. I should like 
to have staid there a week, it was so comfortable and snug 
in all particulars. Being in want of a shave, I learned that 
there were two barber-shops. I got a good shave, removing 
the lather with my handkerchief, and paid a penny for it. I 
asked the old gentleman who did the business if he had 
any bay rum. He said he hadn't. I asked him if he wouldn't 
take up the floor and see ; but he declined to. That ended 
the conference. 

I found Shakspeare's house on a street leading to a station. 
The old lady in attendance proved to be an intelligent and 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 24I 

amiable body, and I enjoyed my visit with her. Xhe first 
room into which I stepped, and which opened directly from 
the sidewalk, was rather barn-like in appearance. Its floor 
had been of flagging ; but it was now splintered as if a pile- 
driver had spent the night in it. The old lady explained 
that the apartment had been used many years as a butcher- 
shop. 

The room contained a little rough furniture, but no other 
object of interest. The wafls were of stone, whitewashed. 
It was the living-room of the house ; and here the young poet 
ate his bread and molasses, and got it over his clean apron ; 
and it was here he came after his London sprees to recu- 
perate. 

The next room, also to the front, contained the museum, 
being not only a collection of his relics, but embracing other 
articles quite foreign to the purpose. There was an extra 
admission to this. There were several hundred portraits of 
the bard both here and in the room above. Vandyke had 
him worked over into a very respectable-looking Dutchman, 
and other painters had been equally liberal with their own 
impressions of how the immortal B. should look. 

I learn from these pictures that Shakspeare wore ear-rings. 
This was quite a blow to me. I despise the man who wears 
ear-rings : he has weak eyes, and unkempt hair, and a bad 
mouth, and is most generally found shambling along on the 
tow-path of a canal. And so Shakspeare wore ear-rings, and 
was undoubtedly partial to canals. Where there is not a pic- 
ture of Shakspeare, there is one of Garrick, who first put the 
red-hot coal to his combustible productions, and started 
the flame which lights to the uttermost parts of the earth, 
owing chiefly to there being no international copyright law. 
The two rooms above were somewhat restricted about two 
of their edges by the steep roof. However, they were full of 
his chairs, and the desk witli which he studied at the school, 
and the table on which he wrote some of his plays (all 



242 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

clumsy and coarse, and all of oak, of course), some of his 
manuscripts, and a few of his originally-printed works. 

We returned down stairs to another apartment, which had 
been, used by the Shakspeare family for a back-kitchen. I 
paused here a moment to reflect. In imagination I could see 
the adolescent genius, bare-legged and bare-headed, holding 
open the outside door, and carefully sheltering his person 
behind it, while his mother hurried out into the rain with the 
tubs for the water. It strengthens one to pause in the hurry 
of life, and think back on the past. I often do it. 

Here was a register, where I inscribed my name, and 
thought of the future, when it would be put up at auction, 
and, after spirited bidding, be knocked down to some intel- 
ligent marquis for a hundred and eight pounds. 

I mounted a stairway, and reached the little bedroom 
where Shakspeare was born. The walls are closely veined 
with the lead-pencil autographs of thousands of people, and 
the panes to the only window are scratched to that degree 
with names as to be almost worthless. Walter Scott figures 
among the rest. Nice way to show respect for a man, mark- 
ing up his house ! The first wave of the tremendous noise 
the immortal was to make in the world started in this hum- 
ble apartment. It is just such an uninteresting room as a 
New-England farmer generally reserves at the top of his 
house to store his seed-corn. The old lady took me thence 
to the garden, and gave me a bunch of posies, and talked 
tenderly and reverently of the dead poet. She said the 
entire charge would be eightpence. Cheap enough. 

Thence I went to the church, a grand old building in an 
enormous churchyard, and looked upon the tomb of Shak- 
speare. The church is much like the others of the estab- 
lished faith. Shakspeare and his wife lie buried within the 
altar-rail, and some others of his family with them. Charges 
reasonable. 

" New Place " is the name of the house where he dwelt 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 243 

after getting his reputation and some money. Part of the 
cellar and the grounds, surrounded by a high wall, opposite 
a pleasant-looking hotel, and on the corner of the street, are 
all that is left of the place where he died. At the house 
next door I found a lady who conducted me over the grounds. 
She took a great interest in Shakspeare. I am afraid some 
one had been around the day before trying to imbue her 
mind with doubts of Shakspeare 's pecuniary welfare. She 
talked like it. She took me over the garden, with its trim 
walks and fine turf and elegant cabbages, and said, " Does 
this look as if he suffered for the necessaries of life?" 

" It does not," I promptly affirmed. 

" It doesn't indeed, does it? " she added. 

" I hope to never die if it does," I declared in a firm and 
unbroken voice. 

Then she showed me the extent of the foundations of 
the building, and said, — 

" Does this look as if he suffered for the necessaries of 
life?" 

And I said, " It does not." 

And she said, " It doesn't indeed, does it? " 

And I said, " I hope never to die if it does." 

Then we went into her house, and she showed me a mu- 
seum, and some of the mouldings which had once decorated 
the walls of the parlors in " New Place," and said, — 

" Does this look as if he suffered for the necessaries of 
life?" 

Whereupon I observed, " It does not." 
'And then she remarked, "It doesn't indeed, does it?" 

Which led me to asseverate^ " I hope to never die if it 
does." 

I then paid the charges, and decamped. 

When I first went there it struck me as being rather odd 
that the old tenement in which he was born should be stand- 
ing, while his far more elaborate residence should have 



244 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

dwindled down to the cellar-walls. Some time after his 
death it passed out of the family's hands, and a late owner 
tore it down. He was a clergyman, and didn't set much 
store by Shakspeare. I told the old lady, if she would be 
kind enough to point out his present abode, I would step 
round there and kill him; but she said he was not about 
Stratford now. 

Next in order came the residence of Anne Hathaway, at 
Shottery. Those whom I asked said it was just across the 
fields, about a half-mile. These English people are regular 
Peabodys in giving you distance. You think you have only 
a half-mile, but are surprised and gratified, on examination, 
to find that they have smuggled in an extra mile without 
attracting your notice. That's what I call true delicacy. I 
followed a broad pathway across several fields, and came into 
Shottery, with its forty or fifty buildings, all antique, and fri- 
gidly simple. Anne's cottage was on the opposite side. It 
sat with its end to the road, and was long enough to be 
occupied by two families, as it indeed was. The family 
that lived at the end toward the road had all the relics, leav- 
ing the other tenants nothing but the privilege of sitting out 
doors and cursing an inhuman world. 

The woman in charge here was angular, and forty-five 
(these figures refer to her years, and not to the degrees of 
her angle). She was poor; the house was poor; her father 
and husband, who were sitting inside, smoking, were poor ; 
and the dog which they kept was poor, but his spirit was 
not crushed. The garden was a mass of irregularly-kept 
flowers of the simple kind, with a few cream-colored roses 
and a great abundance of weeds. A rickety gate opened 
at the corner of the building into the broken stone path 
which led by her door and the door of her aggrieved neigh- 
bor. Across the path from her door was a little well with no 
curb ; and she let down a rusty tin pail, and hooked me up 
some delicious water. Then I followed her into the house, 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 245 

and was made acquainted with her father, a very old man, 
who was hugging the fire-place, although there was no fire in 
it, and pulling away at a pipe. He was eighty odd years old. 
I wanted to ask him if he did not think smoking was under- 
mining his constitution ; but concluded not to, as it was 
growing late. 

It was a wonderful fire-place ; so broad, that the old gentle- 
man sat comfortably within the jamb winter evenings while 
a roaring fire was in progress. There was room for another 
chair and occupant on the other side. The room was good- 
sized, and thoroughly begrimed with smoke and age. A 
number of strings of onions were hanging from a beam over- 
head. The furniture was clumsy, and blackened by time. 
Here Anne and Will sat and sipped beer and nectar. Poor 
Shakspeare ! The great burden of courting was not light- 
ened to him by peanuts. He died without ever seeing them. 

I went up a rather trembling old stairway of oak, much 
similar to that in Bunyan's house, to the room where Anne 
slept, and pondered, undoubtedly, when her folks had com- 
pany down stairs. I well remember what a terrible bore 
company was to me when I was in love. 

It was a little room, with drooping ceiling, and bare, — 
no, the walls were not bare : they were as closely veined as 
those in Shakspeare 's birth-chamber with lead-pencil marks. 

Anne's bed took up a good part of the room, and near 
the foot of it was the stair-opening. Whether she ever got 
out of bed for a drink in the night, and fell down that stair- 
way, history does not say. 

On the bed were the quilts and clothes which Anne's in- 
dustrious fingers had woven and ornamented. Time and 
moths had eaten into the work ; but the skilful needle of my 
guide had repaired the breach. 

She is a Hathaway herself by marriage, and is becomingly 
proud of it. I planked my name on the register, and confi- 
dentially told her, should any one come along and offer her 



246 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

twenty pounds to cut it out for him, not to do it. I don't 
believe she will. 

The autograph of Dickens was there. It was written so 
lamely, that some subsequent visitor had recovered it to pos- 
terity by writing beneath it, "This is the name of Chajrles 
Dickens." 

Dickens was sitting on a stone near the well when the 
book was brought to him for signature, he being a man of too 
much talent to get up and go to the book. ' The penful of 
ink hardly proved enough to go round : hence the indistinct- 
ness. The man who ^vrote the explanation was a direct en- 
courager of snobbery. 

When I left, Mrs. Baker picked some flowers. Outside 
the gate I met a little girl with a single rose, which she 
offered for a penny. A little farther on, I was besieged by a 
half-dozen more on the same errand. 

The people about Stratford treat the memory of Shak- 
speare with great reverence ; but the author of their most 
favorite literature is not Shakspeare. A prophet is hardly 
appreciated in his own country. Shakspeare has a world- 
wide reputation, and his writings are quoted everywhere ; 
but in Stratford the sayings of another are lifted up to public 
view, and that otljer is nameless. His birthplace is unknown ; 
his grave is a mystery. Wherever the English language is 
spoken, his famous utterances are before all eyes ; but he 
himself is as if he had never been. I refer to those two 
well-known lines, — 

POST NO BILLS HERE ! 
COMMIT NO NUISANCE ! 

Why are not the impassioned breathings of Shakspeare 
painted in black letters on white ground, and nailed to the 
walls of Stratford-upon-Avon ? That's what's the matter with 
— that is, I mean why are they not ? 

In conclusion, I wish to say that the number of visitors to 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 247 

the old habitation of Shakspeare is not by any means large. 
Stratford is out of the way, and rather awkward to reach. 
If Shakspeare 's birthplace could be moved to some more 
convenient place, like Derby or Manchester or Leicester, on 
some through-line of travel, the number who would visit it 
would be one hundred to one in its present situation. The 
extra fees thus obtained would very soon pay the expense of 
removal. I have spoken to several English people about it, 
and they are strongly in favor of having it done. 



248 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

GIVES A FEW OF THE PECULIARITIES OF AN ENGUSH WINTER. 

CLEAR, cold, and crisp was my Derbyshire Christmas. 
I wouldn't have missed spending the day in England. 
As England is the embodiment of all expressed by the term 
" home," so we may expect to find in its resources the proper 
observance of a home festival. 

Derbyshire had taken on a little snow and a freezing rain 
nearly six weeks before, and had not yet got rid of it : in 
fact, for eighteen days this section of the mother-country 
had good sleighing. But three days before the dawn of the 
glad anniversary the winter heavens tumbled down the con- 
tents of the treasury, and the entire earth was whitened. 
Derbyshire was very proud. Many years had passed since any 
thing like it had been seen ; and now there was no other part 
of England, not even along the Scottish border, which could 
point to eighteen days of good sleighing. Firmly but kindly 
old Derbyshire levelled its index-finger at this achievement, 
and all England stood abashed. 

And yet there was something grotesque in this pride. A 
woman with a camel's-hair shawl and soiled stockings, a boy 
with a sled without irons, a man with a fob without a watch, 
are in just such a pitiable state as Derbyshire finds itself 
with its eighteen days of good sleighing. 

If there is a sleigh in Derbyshire, if there is a sleigh in all 
England, I know of it only by rumor : I have not seen one, 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 249 

neither on the road nor in the barn. The children have no 
sleds. I saw a boy visiting in Derbyshire who said he had a 
sled at his home. He was a rosy-cheeked, honest-eyed boy, 
and I believed him. Then there was a boy in Lewes who 
pointed out to me, one day in autumn, a very steep street 
which he rode down in winter on a bona fide sled. He was 
a slender lad, with a pale face ; but there was in his features 
such an expression of true worth, that I took in his statement 
at once. 

I suppose there were some two hundred boys and girls in 
this Derbyshire village, and they had facilities in the way of 
coasting enjoyed by no other children outside of Switzer- 
land ; but they had no sleds. There was not a sled in the 
whole village. They had good skating and skates. It hurt 
them worse to fall than it does American children ; for they 
are not so used to it. You could see at once, by the awk- 
ward way they fell, that they lacked practice. 

But the fact that there were no sleds struck me as being a 
stupendous miscalculation or mistake on the part of Nature. 
I said to a little boy, — 

"Where's your sled?" 

" I ain't got one, sir." 

" What do you ride down hill on ? " Then I hastily changed 
the query to, "I mean, what do you do for coasting?" be- 
cause I knew what he rode on. 

" For sledding, sir? " * 

"Yes." 

" I don't do it : I hain't got nothink to sled, sir." 

"Do all the little boys here go without sledding? Don't 
any of them ride down hill?" 

" Oh, yes, sir ! Some rides on their feet ; and some has a 
smooth stone, and rides on that." 

Then I told him what the American boy resorted to when 
he had no sleigh, — such as an old straight-backed chair, a 
jumper made of two staves, a length of stove-pipe, or even a 



250 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

piece of oil-cloth. I told him how a jumper was made, and 
he went off to see his father about it. I saw the old gentle- 
man the next day, and asked him if he had fixed the boy ; 
but he replied in the negative. 

However, I was determined that the jumper should be 
made : so I set about to tell him the way. I got down on 
my knees, and draughted the fabric on the snow. I figured 
out the expense at almost nothing. I enlarged upon the joy 
and comfort a jumper would bring to his heir's heart with 
all the eloquence I could hoist : but he didn't fire up at all ; 
he smouldered away as before. He thought it was a good 
idea to make a jumper; and then he smiled feebly, and 
began to talk of America. If it wasn't for America, I could 
make more progress with this people. 

These swift-running English trains have been busy for the 
three days preceding Christmas, taking people here and 
there for the holiday. Along the complicated mass of iron 
threads have been woven the jolly gatherings and blessed 
re-unions which crown this day to all hearts. For once in 
the whole year the railway octopod of England is not a 
feeder to London, but a drainer thereof. Every train which 
leaves St. Pancras, Victoria, Charing-cross, Waterloo, and 
Ludgate-hill stations, is loaded with the hopeful and fun- 
loving of London people. They go with bags and hampers, 
and pipes and sticks. There are the old and the young, the 
nobleman and the plebeian, the merchant and the clerk, the 
poHtician and the statesman. It is the English Thanksgiv- 
ing, — a time for feasting and praise, for union and congratu- 
lation, for giving and taking. 

But those trains were full. The limit prescribed by law 
was in this case disregarded, and every seat held as many as 
it could ; while the floor was filled with fat hampers and the 
nervous feet of the travellers. 

I never saw such uncomfortable and pleasant travelling as 
was on the London train down to Derbyshire. There were 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 25 1 

three ladies in the compartment; and their hats were on 
wrong, owing to the crush : but they laughed all the while. 
One old gentleman laughed unbrokenly for a half-hour be- 
cause his hat fell off and somebody stepped on it. 

It was strictly an English crowd bent on fun, and bound 
to have it at any sacrifice, except of decency and good tem- 
per. I was pinched up to that extent, that I could use only 
one lung to breathe with ; but I grinned all the way at their 
chaffing. And we all grinned at each other when there was 
nothing else to do. We couldn't help it. It was like a 
bursted pipe of good humor. It kept bubbling up and gush- 
ing forth without any effort on our part. 

I stood down at the little station the afternoon before 
Christmas, and saw three express-trains go by. They were 
long trains, and they were heavily laden. 

I watched the signal-post, and saw the announcement of 
a train passing the lower station on its way to us ; and then 
I waited, and looked in the direction of its coming. 

Finally the front of the locomotive appeared around the 
curve. The air was full of frost. It rose up in waves from 
the valley, and veiled the hill-tops from sight. Beneath this 
canopy so white and beautiful came the flying train. It 
could not be heard. It might have been standing still, for all 
the sound that came to us ; but, as it drew nearer, we could 
see it vibrate under the mighty pulsation of its power. It 
grew larger and larger : the vibration increased till it seemed 
to be fairly staggering on its frail path. We all instinctively 
drew back as far as possible from the track, while it seemed 
as if a weight were oppressing both brain and heart. It was 
the Manchester Express, one half-hour behind time. It was 
a seen but unheard monster, coming toward us with awful 
velocity. 

Within fifteen seconds of its appearance around the curve 
it shot through the station with a roar that was deafening ; 
and, before we could catch our suspended breath, it had 
plunged into the tunnel, and was gone. 



252 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

"What rate of speed do you call that?" said I to my 
friend the station-master, while I vainly strove to suppress a 
shiver. 

" About sixty miles an hour ; it is behind time, you see," 
he explained. 

Nearly every home in that, Derbyshire village was full of 
happy guests. There was happiness in the air and in the 
trees and hedges : it flamed up in the red cheeks, and flashed 
from the bright eyes, and rang out in the hearty laughter and 
glad shouts. 

The music commenced at midnight. As the two hands 
of the village clock met at the figure twelve, the chimes rang 
out their glad song ; and so the day was ushered in, and 
even its light met arid escorted into Derbyshire by the cheery 
bells. All through England, in city and village and hamlet, 
the Christmas-chimes were sounding out the glad news, 
" Christmas has come ! " 

And it had come, the dear Christmas Day ! It had come 
to this home country, with its freight of joy and domestic 
peace. It needed no chimes, no trumpets, to proclaim to a 
stranger the gladness of the day. 

After breakfast the sounds of music came up the hill. The 
village band were stationed in front of the squire's house, and 
were straining their brass throats to the utmost. 

Through the village streets went bands of the musical vil- 
lagers with violin and cornet, and drum and cymbal, stopping 
here and there to serenade a neighbor, and catch up the will- 
ing pennies to make a Christmas cheer. 

All out doors was bright and sunshiny, and shouting and 
laughing ; while in doors was bustle and business. The home 
was a miniature bower. From the walls hung wreaths and 
festoons of evergreens ; and suspended thereon were mottoes 
and scriptural texts, worked with the glistening holly-leaves ; 
and sprigs of holly, with the red berries shining through, 
touched off the windows and the doors. Drawing-room, 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 253 

dining-room, and kitchen fared alike. In the first-named 
stood in secluded grandeur the Christmas-tree, bristling with 
gifts, and gleaming with white wax tapers, waiting for the 
electric touch to turn the sombre green into a dazzling glare. 
And in the servants' hall was a destructive feature in a pendent 
bough of mistletoe, holding oranges and sugar-plums. There 
it hung, an object of apprehensive delight to the red-cheeked 
maidens and the fat butler and his grinning corps of assist- 
ants. All through the day the girls moved about, waiting 
impatiently for the coming of the night ; while the long-joint- 
ed men and boys followed them with their lecherous eyes, or 
winked audibly at the mistletoe. 

After nine o'clock at night the serenading parties increased. 
I notice the negro character takes well over here. Four-fifths 
of those engaged in playing and singing before the houses 
were arrayed in burnt cork and striped shirts. Then the 
principal instruments were banjos, tambourines, and bones. 
I examined one of the banjos. Every string was alike, and 
stretched to varying tensions. They played on them, they 
thumped them and knocked them, and swung them over 
their heads. I listened to one of them for about ten min- 
utes, and then I wondered if these people are really opposed 
to slavery. 

And so I passed my English Christmas, and a pleasanter 
day it could not be possible to enjoy. But they do need a 
Santa Claus badly. 

New- Year's is not made much of here, excepting in some 
sections. In Yorkshire and Lancashire they give presents. 
Manufacturers and merchants are expected to make presents 
to their customers. Sometimes one will get off at the trifling 
cost of five pounds ; but others are not so fortunate. One 
manufacturer of my acquaintance was taxed one hundred 
and thirty pounds last New- Year's, and he says tender re- 
membrances are growing more costly every year. It is a sin- 
gular practice ; but it has the sanction of centuries, and is 



254 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

very much admired by the customers. If an old woman 
buys six shilHngs' worth of needles and tape in the course of 
the year at a store, she expects a present at New- Year's. 
Some of the customers the dealer rarely sees until New- Year's 
Day, when they come in with their unfortunate patronage. 
But to refuse them would be to incur their enmity, and to 
get up a very undesirable reputation in the neighborhood. 
And these customers are rather particular in the matter of 
gifts. If it is not what they expect, they freely discourse on 
its demerits, and show a Hvely disposition to remain with the 
dealer until the mistake has been rectified. 

It must be a genuine pleasure to do business with a dis- 
criminating pubhc. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 255 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

FULL OF EXTRAORDINARY FACTS. 

OF the hospitality of the Enghsh people I have already- 
spoken in as glowing terms as I am capable of fram- 
ing. 

It naturally follows that a hospitable people should be good 
eaters. These are, excepting at breakfast, when a very Uttle 
does them. The late supper is responsible for this, I suspect. 

It is always hearty, and consists, quite frequently, of cold 
meat, fish, bread and butter (precious little butter the Eng- 
lish use), salads, hot pickles, tarts, and other things calculated 
to make a bilious party go raving mad in the night j and 
the whole is topped off with grog and tobacco. 

After a man has got one of these suppers concentrated in 
the pit of his stomach, he is in a condition to commit almost 
any atrocity, and goes to sleep very much in doubt if he will 
awake again, and somewhat inclined to hope that he will 
not. Speaking to an English friend, after one of these meals, 
on the scarcity of butter and fresh bread at the English table, 
he explained that fresh bread and too much butter disagreed 
with the stomach. I didn't say any thing ; but I looked from 
the ruins before us up to the clock, which marked eleven p.m. 

The English are very careful of their stomachs. 

There is an accompaniment to each meal which strikes 
a stranger most forcibly. It is their way of saying grace. 
They are the suddenest people in this respect that I ever saw, 



256 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

and have a way of firing off their gratitude which is most 
starthng. The text is something Hke this, — " For what we 
are about to- receive make us truly thankful ; " and this, by 
some families, is slid in most unexpectedly ; and it has come 
so rapidly and so abruptly, that I have occasionally missed it 
entirely, hearing only the word "about," preceded and fol- 
lowed by a subdued whistling. There being no abatement 
in the work of the table at the time tended to make the im- 
pression the less distinct. The giving of thanks, where it is 
the custom, at the end of the meal, has frequently cut off 
a mouthful of food, so swift and unostentatious has been its 
coming; and the conversation and happy laughter flowed 
along with scarcely a break in its current, and those who 
were to finish did so, and everybody felt contented, and 
looked edified. 

This is quite in contrast to our New-England fashion of 
doing grace. I have sat under a grace which froze the gravy, 
irretrievably damaged the mutton, and imbued the greater 
part of the guests with the gloomiest forebodings, in which 
the African and the South-sea Islander were looked after and 
secured beyond harm, and all political cabals were taken 
under the fifth rib, completely dumfounded, and their evil 
machinations scattered to the four winds of heaven. It was 
a fine performance, and a good thing for humanity at large ; 
but it made the dinner look sick. 

I think I' like the English extreme the best ; but both can 
be bettered, and never will be. 

Another striking peculiarity of the English is their polite- 
ness. If they don't hear your remark, they say, " Beg 
pardon ;" which is much more euphonious than "What?" 
and, besides, delicately shifts the responsibility of the repeti- 
tion from your inarticulation to their inattentiveness. The 
lower class are respectful in their answers ; and the middle, 
like the upper classes, are courteous, if not communicative. 
No half-dozen people can meet in the bar-parlor of a public- 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 257 

house without becoming acquainted ; and, in the railway 
carriages, no American need be without pleasant chats, and 
necessary information of the country about him. When an 
Englishman goes to America, he quite frequently finds a 
different order of things. He sees less intercommunication 
among the occupants of his car. The common man whom 
he addresses may be one who believes the Almighty made 
him after the most careful consideration, and the answers 
will be framed accordingly. Here the people know their 
place. The boor is not allowed to take precedence of the 
scholar, nor even assume a level with him, however great or 
•loud his pretensions. But there is a respectfulness that be- 
comes servility, and an independence that is offensiveness. 

In this connection I must call attention to the curious 
fallacy which possesses some of these people, in that they 
limit to America all the possibihties for getting ahead in the 
world. Once in America, and fortune or political preference 
is secured. But Great Britain is full of instances of success 
based alone on merit, unaccompanied by position or wealth.- 
A newsboy is in their cabinet. A common gardener was 
the architect ot the Crystal Palace, and died a knight. The 
very owners of this fallacy have shown me scores of wealthy 
neighbors, who, within their remembrance, were once con- 
fined to less than four dollars a week. 

If America has a larger field, there is greater competition. 
Merit and perseverance will win the goal anywhere, or " bust " 
the universe. 

Despite the age of this nation, and the many advantages it 
has enjoyed in the past three centuries, many of its people are 
bow-legged. This is owing, I think, to continuous standing 
on their feet at an extremely early age, admiring the general 
aspect of the national debt. It is what might be called the 
bow-legacy of a national debt. There is no present danger 
of a similar affliction resting upon America. Our debt is so 
large, that we can see it without standing up. 



258 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

The common use of endearing terms in the family circle 
makes a lively impression on the stranger. " Love," " lovey," 
and " my love," and " dear," " deary," and " my dear," are 
the popular and most soothing interchange of adjectives, which 
are constantly flying around the domestic circle. I think 
it is sometimes rather overdone when four or five " loves " 
or " dears " season a simple request. Yet it sounds infinitely 
better than our "old man" and "old woman," or even 
" mutton-head." I never knew the latter to work well as a 
term of endearment : still it is useful. 

Among the numerous things to which we are accustomed 
at home, but do not see here, are surprise-parties, clam-bakes, 
euchre, negroes, seven-up, and skunks. I have seen less 
than a half-dozen Africans in England and Scotland, and 
none of the other articles. I inadvertently mentioned skunks 
at a party one evening, and was obliged to give an elaborate 
description of the shrub, very much to my embarrassment. 
I find that the ladies here easily tire of the topic, and crave 
something else. I do not press it upon them. 

I thought Everybody had skunks. 

Sewing-machines are not so common here, by any means, 
as they are in free and untrammelled America; but they 
are numerous. The English machine is a very crude affair, 
being mostly required to be fastened to a table. It sells for 
from twelve to fifteen dollars. The American machines are 
the most popular, like American pianos and organs. Wheeler 
& Wilson's, Singer's, Howe's, and Willcox & Gibbs's, are well 
known here. They retail from thirty to forty dollars, or 
some twenty dollars cheaper than they can be bought in the 
country where they are manufactured. 

This is a nut for the poHtical economist to mash his thumb 
with. Many a man has fallen from an upper-story window 
in England without crippling several sewing-machine agents. 
No man has done it in the States in the past ten years. 

Both the post-offices and telegraph-offices are owned by 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW, 259 

the government, and both are in admirable working-order. 
You will see little towns — so small that the postmaster keeps 
the office in his home — having its telegraph-wire. The 
postmaster must also be an operator, unless his salary is suf- 
ficient to supply one; and he is not appointed by every 
new government, but holds his office so long as he proves 
worthy of it. In telegraphing, twenty-five cents will carry 
twenty words to any part of the kingdom : above that num- 
ber, it is two cents a word. There is still, however, a trifle 
of old fogyism about the post-office department. Mail-carts 
are frequently used where the rail could more effectively do 
the work. 

For instance, the mail from London to the interior of Nor- 
folk County is carried by rail to Ely ; there it is transferred 
to carts, by which it is carried to Lynn, though the rail runs 
to Lynn ; thence again by cart to all the coast towns, fol- 
lowing the line of the railway. I am not prepared to explain 
this extraordinary proceeding. 

The postmaster-general is an exquisite any country should 
be proud of; but he does not know how to run the mails, 
excepting by cart. 

There are no wooden houses here ; and this fact recently 
placed an English friend in a rather embarrassing position. 
He had sojourned in the States several years, and returned 
to his native land fully primed with valuable information. 
Several nights after his return, while entertaining a few friends 
in a private bar-parlor of thfe White-horse tavern, he ven- 
tured on the astounding assertion, that he had seen a house 
moved ; and becoming reckless by the- horrified expression 
on the faces of his companions, and the utter impossibility 
of backing safely out, he followed up the sensation by boldly 
announcing that he had seen a three-story tenement going 
down the middle of a street. Immediately an oppressive and 
ominous silence fell upon the auditors ; and very soon they 
arose, one by one, and, with glances of significant pity on the 



260 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

audacious narrator, moodily retired from the room, leaving 
him entirely alone with his seared conscience. The last one 
to leave took occasion to overhaul his predecessor in the 
entry, and to observe in a gloomy whisper that "that was 
the bloodiest lie he had ever heard." And to this day that 
returned Englishman is eyed with suspicion. 

So much for being observant and communicative. 

As I have said before, the English imbibe only plain drinks, 
and water them fearfully. But there are two or three Ameri- 
can bars started in London ; and they have paved the way 
for others, which will soon follow. To be particular, there 
are just two ; and both are owned by Spiers and Pond, the 
famous caterers, and Great British smashers of monopolies. 
The first one they started, with their other refreshment- 
saloons, in the Kensington Museum ; and the second they 
have at the Criterion Building, adjoining Regent Circus. 

At the front of the Criterion bar (which from six o'clock 
Sunday afternoon to eleven o'clock Sunday night, as well as 
at all times on week-days, is in a blaze of gas, — no ladies 
admitted after eight p.m.) is a little apartment, about ten 
feet square, devoted to the concoction of American drinks. 
A genuine American, being from Philadelphia, has been 
imported expressly for the purpose. He was rather lone- 
some the first fortnight ; but company is beginning to gild 
his hours. Among . his drinks are a few that will possess 
the attraction of novelty, if nothing else, to my American 
readers. They are, sherry blush, ladies' blush, gin-fix, bosom- 
caresser, dog's-nose, pick-me-up, gin and tansy (?), John 
Collins, rattlesnake, saddle-rock, evening star, Leo's own, 
corpse-reviver, and flash-of-Hghtning. There are forty-eight 
different kinds of drinks in all. 

They marry and give in marriage just as we do ; only 
they precede the marrying with a form that we do not. I 
was at an English church in a country village the other day, 
where the announcements of six marriages were read by the 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 26 1 

venerable and consumptive-looking clerk. These announce- 
ments specified that he and she had come into an agree- 
ment to unite their fortunes for hfe, if no impediment existed ; 
and, if any one in the congregation knew any reason why 
these two should not be made one, now was the time to 
rise and explain, or ever after hold his peace. Myself and 
the rest preserved silence. These banns are called the 
number of Sundays the groom can afford, as the clerk has to 
be paid for doing it. It is never less than one Sunday, and 
seldom more than three. The custom would not do in 
America. 

You see no cakes of ice on the sidewalk here ; and I can 
readily imagine that an American city street in the morning 
must fill an Englishman with surprise. An American misses 
the great variety of vegetables, meats, and breads served up 
at his home hotel, and the equal variety of mixed drinks 
dealt out at his home bar ; but I think he misses ice more 
than all these. I feel safe in asserting that seven-eighths of 
the bar-rooms, and full that proportion of the hotels, are not 
regularly supplied with ice ; and I have yet to see the restau- 
rant with a single pitcher of ice-water. And, of the two 
countries, England stands more in need of ice than we do, 
as its drinking-water is generally inferior. 

They have a singular custom here : it is to require the 
party who presents a five-pound-note to indorse his name 
on the back. I have asked trades-people who have requested 
me to do this why it is done ; but they cannot explain. One 
of them said, it was in case the note should prove spurious, 
when he could " come back " on me for it. As I never saw 
him before, and expected never to see him again, this seemed 
likely enough. And just as if a counterfeiter would indorse 
his own name on the note ! A trusting and childlike people 
are they. The pound-notes are of white paper of parchment 
appearance. The design is simple lines printed in black ink. 
They are so wonderfully simple, that it is difficult to associate 
them with any value. 



262 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

The shopman rings the sovereign on his counter, not to 
test its genuineness, but its soundness. They are afraid of 
cracked sovereigns. I do not know what a cracked sover- 
eign is, as I have not seen any. Some people say Queen 
Victoria is one. 

Although the English chew but little tobacco, they con- 
sume great quantities of the weed in smoking and snuffing. 
I have seen a number of young people addicted to the latter 
habit. I don't care who snuffs, if he will only keep away 
from my victuals. In many of the old-fashioned English inns 
snuff-boxes or snuff-horns are to be found in the smoking- 
room, from which the guest helps himself without charge. 
The same inn keeps a stock of long-stemmed clay pipes on 
hand for the use of patrons. Clay pipes are in such favor 
here, that some of them are dignified with an amber mouth- 
piece. 

A New- York manufacturer of meerschaum pipes once 
told me that he could sell me a pipe as low as I could buy 
it in Vienna. He wanted ten dollars for one that can be 
bought here for three dollars ; and they say here that that 
is as cheap as it can be bought in Vienna. I am obliged 
to think the New- York man prevaricated. But I shall wait 
till I reach Vienna before investing in a meerschaum pipe. 
This reminds me of an American who was going to buy a 
pipe in Vienna ; but he finally bought it here, as he gave up 
going to Vienna, and went back home, for the extraordinary 
reason that he could not get hash here. He was so fond of 
hash, that he employed it at two meals daily. Here it is not 
in use, and he made several efforts to have it compounded. 
The article they prepared had all the ingredients, but 
seemed to lack that mystery which is the chief charm of 
hash ; and so he gave up in disgust, and went home. 

There is another feature of English life that will rather 
surprise New-England people. They do not lay in vege- 
tables in the fall for winter use. What they want they buy 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 263 

as they need ; and that dear old November spectacle of put- 
ting a half-dozen barrels to rights, and mashing your finger 
in the operation, or disjointing your spine in carrying a bar- 
rel of potatoes down a cellar stairway, is never witnessed 
here. Their pork is smoked or dried, but not corned, and 
is called bacon. But then, as they do not eat beans, why 
should they have salt pork ? 

The other day I said to a little girl, " What did Santa Claus 
give you last Christmas?" 

" Santa Claus? " said her mother. 

"Why, yes; don't you have Santa Claus?" I asked in 
some consternation. 

"No." 

"We do," I said with enthusiasm. "We'd never think of 
getting over a Christmas without Santa Claus." 

" Well, we shall have Santa Claus," said she with determi- 
nation. " How is it made ? " 

With undisguised sorrow I explained that Santa Claus was 
not a Christmas dish, but a respectable Dutchman from the 
Rhine, who had emigrated to America; been naturahzed, and 
was now the crowned king of the children. And these peo- 
ple never even heard of the dear saint, and in all these gen- 
erations have gone to bed of a Christmas Eve with their 
stockings on ! 

The bloody, blasted beggars ! as they say. 



264 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 



BRINGS US INTO SCOTLAND. 



IT was evening, and raining, when we reached Edinburgh ; 
and the drive down the main street (Princess) to the hotel 
was by a bank of closed and dripping shops, with an occa- 
sional street-light to show up the moisture and the puddles. 
I got to bed early, after vainly looking for the tiers of lights 
which I was told streamed in a weird blaze from the lofty 
buildings of Scotland's fair city. 

I had heard so much of the elevated location of Edinburgh, 
that I was prepared not to enjoy my sojourn there. I do 
not like to climb precipitous streets ; and sitting behind a 
horse, and seeing him straining in the ascent until the effort 
reverses the pupils of his eyes, is a torture I shrink from. 

I did wonder how near the station was to the city (for, of 
course, the train could not ascend the hill into the city) ; and 
I also speculated whether there would be eight, or only four, 
horses attached to the cabs. 

Edinburgh is built upon three parallel ridges. The central 
ridge commences in the flat where Holyrood Palace stands, 
and gradually ascends, forming the old High Street, until it 
abruptly terminates in a mass of rock, with a front altitude 
of three hundred feet or so. This ridg"e is about a mile in 
length. The rock contains the famous Edinburgh Castle ; 
and the three open sides are so steep, that it seems to be 
impossible of ascent. The rock is just as it was in appear- 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 265 

ance the day it was formed, there having been no attempt 
whatever to smooth and adorn its rugged sides. The ridge, 
and the ravine on the south which forms the street called 
Cowgate, are the Old Town. The ridge on the north runs 
counter to the central. It is also broader, and has less 
ascent ; in fact, the ascent is hardly noticed. It terminates 
in a huge knoll called Calton Hill, where are several monu- 
ments, a good view of the entire city, and a singular failure 
to estabhsh a Parthenon. Edinburgh people have long been 
convinced that all their city needed to be an Athens was a 
Parthenon : so on Calton Hill, their Acropolis, they started 
the Parthenon, and only abandoned it when they discovered 
that their means were not co-equal with their zeal. Every 
family should have a Parthenon. They are nice to stand in 
when it rains. This north ridge is the New Town. The 
Edinburgh of to-day exists mostly on the north ridge. Its 
main and front street is Princes. It is a broad avenue of 
shops and hotels on one side, and the terraced park which 
skirts its side of the ravine on the other. Its buildings face 
the Old Town. Back of and parallel with it are several 
broad avenues of residences, and cutting across are similar 
streets. These, with their buildings, remind me of upper 
New York, they are so quiet and so select. The Old Town is 
much different in appearance and occupation from the new. 
Its houses are from five to ten stories in height, built of 
block stone, or of chip stone covered with concrete, with 
sharp crow-5tep gables, narrow windows, low doorways, 
stone floors, and frequently circular stone stairways. Take 
the natural elevation of the site, with the extraordinary 
height of the buildings and their rock-like simplicity, and 
you have in the Old Town an imposing city indeed. 

The side of the ravine facing the New Town is altogether 
too steep and too brief to permit of " roof towering above 
roof in castellated array," as some one writes. I have 
looked over there several hundred times ; but I can see but 



266 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



two tiers of roof really. Still the imposing feature is there, 
and cannot be denied. But it is all in the location. There 
is no more architectural merit to the buildings than there is 
to an ice-chest. They are quaint-looking, but no more. 
If you ever assisted in getting an ice-chest up a back 
stairway, you may have noticed some quaint features about 
//. As for " the tiers of weird light shimmering in the dark- 
ness like a tiara of diamonds," it is a good idea ; but it isn't 
•oo. I had the impression, from this and similar misrepre- 
sentations, that the occupants of the various floors, or flats 
as they are called here, had innumerable gas-jets to work in 
every room. I didn't know then, as I well do now, that 
many of the possessors of those flats are too poor to keep 
their linen clean, and are only too thankful to have a bed to 
crawl into, without the aid of a tallow dip even. 

The Old Town is hoary with age, and is builded like 
nothing we can show in America. But these' people will 
persist in showing you their new features. They don't real- 
ize that we of America have more and better than they can 
produce ; and that, tiring of the elegance and splendor, we 
have come here to see and feast on the antique and unique 
of Europe. When I was revelHng in the broad level fields 
and straight smooth roads of Norfolk, they would talk of 
nothing but the glorious peaks and mountains and glens and 
ridges of Derbyshire. Hills indeed ! A high old variety 
hills form to a New-Englander ! 

The main street of the Old Town is full of business and 
tenements ; but the former is entirely composed of small 
retail-shops, patronized exclusively by the straitened tenants 
of the dirty and gloomy and homely tenements. 

The whole length of the High Street, from the palace to 
the castle, is punctured with lanes, some of them running 
through to the Cannongate Backs and Cowgate, and others 
ending in courts. Some of them are wide enough for four 
people to walk abreast ; others are barely three feet in width. 



1 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 267 

All of them are lined with tenements. They are called 
closes and wynds ; but the former is the more proper name. 
How human beings can remain in such places, eating and 
sleeping, surrounded by the close, dark atmosphere, and not 
be smothered by the stench, is something I do not under- 
stand. Advocates' Close, to look down it, shows but aribbon 
of light at the other end ; but in some places it is nearly 
five feet wide. Such breadths must be genuine plazas to the 
inhabitants, although it must worry them to see so much 
space going to waste. White-horse Close, down near the 
Tolbooth, opens in through an arch under one of the street- 
buildings. Passing through, the visitor comes into a court. 
The buildings which line its sides are but two low stories 
high ; but they are very, very old. Even a smart coat of 
whitewash cannot conceal the wrinkles which several hun- 
dred years have wrought on their surface. They are full of 
little gables and turrets, with dormer-windows irregularly set 
in their long, sloping roofs. They are massively built, with 
tremendous stone stairs leading up into them. On one of 
the stoops is a sore-eyed man playing a violin. On the 
other stoops, and over the pavement of the court, are children 
in short clothes, wallowing about, begrimed with dirt, and 
inquisitively tasting every thing in reach. There is a little 
puddle of green water in the centre of the court, — the emp- 
tyings from some wash-tub, I should judge, if there were any 
thing else in sight to corroborate the evidence of a wash-tub, 
— and in it one of the dirtiest of the filthy lot is sailing a 
bit of pasteboard ; and another is dipping up the Hquid in 
his hands, and pouring it over his own head. It is unguided 
instinct telling him he ought to be washed. At the back 
end is a double house ; at least, it has two half-moon turrets 
at the front, with a stoop between that branches off half way 
up, and ascends into both of them. There are three old 
men and one old woman on the stair and its branches. One 
of the old men is asleep ; another is smoking a short clay 



268 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

pipe; the third sits with his chin in his hands, thinking of 
the pohtical dissensions in Japan. The old woman is spht- 
ting up a piece of wood with a heavy knife. To the right 
of the stoop, and below one of the turrets, are two doors, or 
rather doorways, as I can see no doors. Several children 
are tumbling from the pavement down through them. On 
the left of the stoop, and beneath the other turret, is a narrow 
passage into the North Back of Cannongate. Pick your way 
through it carefully, as its floor is covered with filth. 

This is a prototype of the closes and the wynds, whether 
they be off the High Street or the Cowgate, excepting that 
the buildings in most of the others tower up to a much 
greater height. There are drunken, brawling men and wo- 
men, idiots, cripples, loathsomely-scarred people, prostitutes 
arrayed in gaudily- striped petticoats or skirts, dirty, crying 
children, and, among all, the decent poor, struggling against 
poverty and crime for bread to enable them to stay longer 
in the misery, and to endure more of it. 

Such is life, here and everywhere. 

It is Saturday evening on the High Street. As far as you 
can see down it or up it are masses of humans. Hardly a 
vehicle can be seen. The very pavement is hidden beneath 
their moving forms. Here, sitting against a pump, is a blind 
man playing on a windy demon called bagpipes ; but a few 
feet from him are a family of five, bringing good music out 
of as many violins ; near to them are two girls, with young 
forms and old faces and pinched features, singing in a 
trained, cracked voice that hurts my heart more than its 
offends my ear ; and but a short distance below is a strolling 
brass band. I never saw a place like Edinburgh for street- 
music. All the main thoroughfares are alive with it every 
pleasant evening. The brass bands play British tunes, which 
are not always good. They are Germans. The sopranos 
must be Irish, as they sing but little else than Killarney. The 
others are Italians, French, &c. Edinburgh is the crucible 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 269 

for actors and writers, so claimed : I am generous enough 
to award them the musicians as well ; otherwise I do not 
understand why there should be so much more of them here 
than in any other city in Britain. 

We may walk down the whole length of the High Street, 
and see no abatement of the crowd or of the squalor. 
The high buildings are closely tenanted ; and from many of 
the windows young children, pipe-smoking men, and croon- 
ing old women, are leaning out, and staring stolidly down 
upon the animation below them. 

You and I could not live there. Why do they? Simply 
because they can get a room here for from eightpence to a 
shilhng and eightpence a week ; in our language, from eight 
dollars and thirty-two cents to eighteen dollars and seventy- 
two cents a year. It is rarely that a family needs more than 
one room ; and to be centrally located in* a ten-story build- 
ing, within five minutes' walk of the post-office and principal 
theatres, is no unworthy object in this life. And the price is 
dreadfully cheap. 

Cowgate, as I have said, runs from the inverse apex of the 
south ravine. It has the same buildings and courts and 
closes as figure along High Street ; but it is more obscure 
than High Street, and of itself is sufficiently filthy without 
the auxiliaries. It has been rendered much darker than it 
was by the throwing of ponderous arch bridges over it at 
stated intervals, to make easier communication across the 
city. I went through there at a little after midnight. The 
liquor places had been closed since eleven o'clock ; but the 
drunkenness was intense. Such yelling and cursing and 
clawing, by men, women, and children, I never before wit- 
nessed. It was both harrowing and deafening. I believe I 
am safe in saying, that, within a space of ten minutes, I saw 
thirty women with blackened eyes and bruised faces ; and 
I care not to give the number of men, tattered and bleeding, 
who passed me. I shinned up out of that locality without 



2/0 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

wickedly wasting time, you can bet ; that is, you may be 
sure. I have been among the British people so long, that 
I find I am becoming quite slangy. I must break myself 
of it. 

The High Street is a mile long. I do not know where 
you will find a mile equally famous in history. It is called 
the Old Town. " Bloody Ridge " would be far more appro- 
priate. I don't know how old Edinburgh is ; but it was a 
village well known twelve hundred years ago ; and before the 
advent of the Romans, three hundred years previous to that, 
it is said there was a fortress on the rock. As executions as 
well as imprisonments occurred at fortresses, it is safe to 
believe that the wonderful hill or ridge commenced to run 
blood before the Star of Bethlehem appeared ; and the 
current thus set to going abated but little until the advent of 
the past century. 

There have been beheadings and gibbetings, and hangings 
and stabbings, and burnings and murders, in about every 
form suggested by devilish ingenuity, perpetrated within the 
boundaries of that decaying and odorous street. 

Its walls have resounded to the mightiest eloquence, wit- 
nessed the grandest heroism, and shut in upon the most ter- 
rible despair, a country ever knew. 

Here the imperishable Knox waged his battle of the Ref- 
ormation. Here the noble Argyle marched bravely to his 
shameful death. Here the assassins of King James rode, 
and suffered their exquisite torture, and met their terrible 
fate. Here men, torn from their family and friends, beat out 
their lives against their prison bars. Here have been plots 
and counterplots ; and here a kingdom has been lost and 
won, and deeds done which have brought immeasurable grief 
and agony to thousands of homes. 

They are hawking fish here to-day, and playing on fiddles, 
and singing wretched songs, and getting drunk, and raising 
the devil generally. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 27 1 

What a people ! 

Beginning at the castle, I took a stroll down the street. 
What I saw at the castle I cannot tell you. I have told 
you that it is on a monstrous rock. Its outer walls are so 
near the edge of it, and join it so neatly, as to make the two 
almost indistinguishable. It is a broken mass of buildings, 
not very castellated in appearance, but looking like a respect- 
able arsenal, winking lazily at the past, and yawning dread- 
fully in the face of the future. I was one of a party who 
went over it under the charge of a guide. That is about 
all I can confidently assert in regard to the expedition. 
Going over these old castles under the guidance of the au- 
tomatons supplied for the purpose is a dreary and unsatisfac- 
tory process. The guide has one programme ; and he goes 
over it just as he would go over a treadmill after two years' 
practice, — accurately enough, but lacking enthusiasm. After 
you get out, *you naturally look around for somebody to 
knock down. 

Rare old Ben Jonson and Boswell once lived on this street. 
Hume the historian was also a resident here. You wouldn't 
believe it, to look at the present tenants, and smell the smell 
that the opening of a door reveals. The house is still here 
where Scotland's brightest poetic genius, Robbie Burns, held 
his "festivals." About two o'clock in the morning the 
neighbors used to wake up and curse that Burns chap from 
the country. 

Edinburgh people think that the chief relic of the Old 
Town is St. Giles's Church. It is a curious building, not so 
from design, but from its use. It is divided into three sepa- 
rate places of worship, and consequently has three con- 
gregations, and three pastors, and three separate church 
governments. There are several combinations of the kind in 
Scotland. The wings which flank the tower are of but little 
interest historically. The central portion is that which is 
shown as where Knox preached. It is not a large room, and 



2/2 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

seems still less than it is by the wonderfully high boxes which 
serve as pews. The woman who has charge of it pointed out 
the elevated pulpit as that from which Knox thundered his 
philippics. The same pulpit, complete, is in the museum ; 
and pieces of it can be found in every collection of relics 
throughout Scotland. These things rather confuse me. Back 
of the church are the former parliament-buildings, and be- 
tween the two is a paved square. You would hardly believe 
it ; but John Knox is buried here. Near the centre of the 
square is a reddish block of stone set into the pavement ; and 
on its face, in brass, are two letters, — J. K. Carriage-wheels 
go over it, the foot of every pedestrian treads upon it, — the 
grave of John Knox. , 

But it is a joke, dear reader, — an Edinburgh joke. This 
square stone, sunk to a level with the pavement, is not John 
Knox's tomb. His tomb is on Princess Street^ — a structure 
worthy of the greatness of the man. But the facetious Edin- 
burghers say that this is John Knox's sepulchre, and that 
the magnificent monument in the Princess-street Park is 
erected to the memory of a party named Scott, a concocter 
of amusing fiction. Did you ever hear any thing like that ? 
Now, if they had assigned this beautiful memorial to Duncan 
Forbes, or even George the Fourth, the joke would have taken 
well ; but in the present instance the absurdity is so great, that 
it defeats its purjDose. But the Scotch people don't care. 
They are so set in their principles, and so jealous of the reputa- 
tion of their great reformer, and so appreciative of the results 
of his struggle, that they think they can joke as absurdly as 
possible, without danger of being misrepresented. It was a 
cunning idea to make the J. K. over this water or gas main 
(for one or the other it undoubtedly is) in the old English 
style, — I. K. It is a wink in stone, being the initials of " I 
know." 

Close to this spot, with the tail of his horse gracefully 
sweeping over it, is an equestrian statue to Charles the Second, 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 273 

with a fulsome eulogy to his virtue and statesmanship. It 
was not put there to do honor to that giddy and dissipated 
prince, but as an auxiliary to the Knox joke. And it an- 
swers the purpose well ; for ninety-five out of every hundred 
strangers taken to the spot "lets out " something like — 

" What ! put up an elaborate statue to that old rip, and 
allow Knox to moulder beneath his horse's heels, with ten 
pounds of sandstone to mark the spot?" 

And in high dudgeon the visitor stalks away, and the 
noble Scotchman laughs slyly in his sleeve. 

Farther below is John Knox's house. It partly sets out in 
the street, and is a four-story, antique, many-gabled building. 
A cigar-store is on the first floor. The building is kept just 
as Knox left it three hundred years ago, and is shown to vis- 
itors for the mild figure of a sixpence. On the angle toward 
us, just over the cigar-store, is a wooden eflfigy, supposed to 
be a representation of Knox. I have found out subsequently 
that it is not Knox, but a figure of Moses. I thought the 
face had a familiar look. 

Knox was a merry man, despite his arduous work. It 
is said of him, that during his last illness, and having com- 
pany, he bade the servant to broach a fresh cask of wine 
which had been presented to him, that he might enjoy some 
of it with his friends, as " he was not like to tarry till it be 
finished." 

Near Knox's house is one of those massive, box-shaped 
pumps so common here. It is the author of an incident 
supposed to be characteristic of Scotch humor. There was 
a woman who was suspected of many thefts ; but no respon - 
sibility could be fastened upon her. She had a lover, who, 
from a brain defect, was called " Daft Jimmy." In despair 
of detecting the woman, the police seized on " Daft Jimmy," 
and, after a night's confinement, proceeded to worm the 
secret out of him. But not a syllable would he give, until 
there were brought to him' the provost and magistrates. 



274 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

Those dignitaries, realizing the importance of the intelligence, 
lost no time in coming to Jimmy. 

" Now," said the provost with breathless interest. 

"There will no harm come to me? " asked the traitor. 

They solemnly assured him that not a hair of his head 
should be harmed. Still he hesitated, — probably because 
he was bald, and did not consider the figure of speech 
exactly apphcable to the occasion. 

Again they assured him that he should not suffer. 

He looked anxiously over their faces for a moment, and, 
apparently assured of their sincerity, said, — 

" Ye ken the well anent Knox's house ? " 

"Yes, Jimmy," they responded. 

" The square wan? " 

"Yes, Jimmy." 

"Do ye ken the handle?" 

"Yes, Jimmy" (with marked eagerness). 

"Could ye lift it?" 

"Yes, Jimmy," in quivering voices. 

" Well, go pump it then ; for ye'll not pump me." 

The audience dispersed. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 275 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

EDINBURGH STILL FURTHER CONSIDERED. 

OLIVER CROMWELL, the Scotch kings, Dr. Johnson, 
Burns, Allan Ramsay, Mary Queen of Scots, and a 
host of other celebrities, have lived here. It don't look like 
it now. And it is still more remarkable, that nearly all these 
grim and grimed tenements were the homes of Edinburgh's 
aristocracy. A Scotch friend who took me over this portion 
of the city, and gave me much pleasant information regard- 
ing it, made a very apt remark in saying that his people 
went to extremes in personal habits : they were either exces- 
sively clean, or excessively dirty. 

Here, to-day, slops are emptied into many of the streets, 
and nuisances are committed with a freedom and frequency 
that are revolting. Centuries ago, when the feudal lords 
had their city residences here, they spent the day in hunting, 
and the night in feasting. Each guest helped himself to the 
roast, cutting off choice pieces with his dirk, and masticating 
them with his fingers and teeth. After the eating, the liquors 
were brought on ; and, filled to the brim with the inflammable 
stuff, the guest forthwith dropped from his chair, and rolled 
under the table, and went to sleep unostentatiously. The 
animals slaughtered sprinkled their blood on the stairs, or 
smeared it against the wall ; and refuse was dumped into 
the back-yard, or left in the street, — the condemndest spec- 
tacle you ever saw, as the historian Hume has observed. 



2/6 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

As years went round on their ceaseless course the people 
became more polished and refined, and dressed their meat 
at proper places, and introduced forks and more liquors, and 
procured ve^^sels to hold the slops until they could get time 
to empty them out of the front drawing-room window. 

It is singular the great number of temperance hotels in 
this thoroughfare. There are no less than a dozen of them. 
In the midst of the rum and ruin they rear their brazen 
fronts. 

But, after all, it is a pleasant place to visit, because of its 
antiquities. One seems to never tire of looking at them, and 
speculating on their past. Some important ones have been 
torn down in the past few years ; and the city-improvement 
society is already at work on others. Those standing are 
strong enough to sustain themselves for a thousand years to 
come ; but, fifty years hence, precious few of them will be 
in existence. The hand of improvement is spreading its 
vampire fingers over the fabrics, and constantly compressing 
their limits. 

Holyrood Palace, which everybody goes to see, is impor- 
tant now only as it contains relics of the past ; but it was 
once a significant building, and has a history that should, 
and undoubtedly will, preserve it as long as one stone re- 
mains upon another. It contains a picture-gallery of the 
kings of Scotland for the past two thousand centuries. They 
were ordinary-looking men, and only needed shaving, and 
their hair cut, to make them presentable pedestrians for the 
streets of the nineteenth century. The portraits may be 
considered accurate, as they were painted after 'several hun- 
dred years of anxious study by the artist. There were sev- 
eral pictures of Robert Bruce, and a mighty hard struggle to 
spell his name in mongrel English or Latin. They had it 
Evgenvis Robertvis Brvssivs. I don't know what Evgenvis 
was for ; but I presume it was where they ploughed around 
to get a start. From the picture-gallery is a passage leading 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 27/ 

into the tower, and on the floors above are shown the apart- 
ments of Queen Mary and her unfortunate husband Lord 
Darnley. Darnley's rooms were on the floor below those of 
his wife. For some time she had neglected him, — even to 
shutting him out from her chambers, when a favorite, an 
Italian named Rizzio, was admitted. They had many quar- 
rels, when he would talk back, and she would throw skillets 
and rolling-pins. I never heard any one say so ; but I am 
married myself. Mary was a schemer (being a widow be- 
fore marrying Darnley) ; and Rizzio was a schemer also, in 
the interests of France and Spain. The Scotch nobility 
became alarmed at the influence of the foreigner over their 
queen, and several of them conspired together to hang him 
to the city cross. Darnley was glad of the opportunity; 
and, the night the conspirators came to the palace, he met 
them in this little room where he slept (and where I am now 
staring at the walls), and conducted them up a private stair- 
way to the audience-chamber. Off from the audience-cham- 
ber opens a little room, said to be the supper-room of the 
queen. She was there with Rizzio when the conspirators 
came in and told Rizzio that that was no place for him. The 
queen sprang to her feet ; and the Italian, with characteristic 
courage, fell on his knees behind her. They were up to a 
trick or two in those days that we think we have originated. 
Rizzio put his arm about Mary's waist, and clung tenaciously 
to her : whereupon one of the party just bent back his 
middle finger, and Mr. R. let go at once. I have been led 
to drop articles I had become attached to by the same con- 
vincing argument. Darnley then held his wife ; and Rizzio 
was pulled out of the room, and dragged across the audience- 
chamber, their daggers plying into his shrinking and writh- 
ing body at every step. At the door they finished him. It 
was an awful murder, and we are apt to condemn the perpe- 
trators. But we cannot properly understand and appreciate 
the cause for it. Perhaps Rizzio owned a hand-organ : Ital- 



2/8 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

ians do. However, it would have been much better if 
Darnley had made the quarrel his own, and brought a civil 
suit against Rizzio for sixty thousand dollars' damages and 
costs. 

If this was her supper-room she was a slow queen, and 
had fallen far behind her French-court education. It is an 
irregular-shaped apartment, and hardly large enough for 
four people to eat a baked apple within it. 

Her bedroom was not extensive ; but it must have been a 
handsome apartment when the tinsel and lustre of its tapes- 
try were in their prime. /The bed is still here, — a four-poster, 
with a canopy and hangings, and an elaborate spread over 
it ; but every thing is tarnished by the three hundred years 
that have expired since they were new. 

But the visitor is staggered on looking into what was the 
fair queen's dressing-room. It is an apartment that no two 
women could lace their shoes in ; and how she, with her 
stiff bodice, lace furbelows, and long train, ever turned 
around after getting into the room, and got out again, is a 
matter on which history is ominously silent. As near as I 
can remember, the room is about nine feet long and four feet 
wide, and lighted by a single, narrow, deep-recessed window. 
The polished steel plate with which she arranged her back 
hair is here ; so are many of her toilet articles. She always 
carried her own comb and brush, and never borrowed from 
the servants at the hotels where she stopped. A close re- 
semblance between Mary and myself in this particular has 
struck the notice of a number of people, who have fre- 
quently commented upon it. 

Mary's writing-desk is still preserved. I wondered, as I 
looked at it, if the people in those days used to spoil sheets of 
paper by dating with the old year instead of the new for the 
first fortnight of the latter, and swear at their luck, as I have 
heard respectable merchants do. 

I forgot to tell you that at the entrance to the palace is a 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 2/9 

regularly-ordained ticket-office, where you buy your admis- 
sion just the same as at a circus. It, like most of these ob- 
jects of interest, is on a paying basis. And I am glad of it. 
An old gentleman stays in the roofless abbey, where he has a 
stand of photographs, &c., for sale. On making a purchase, 
I gave him a sovereign ; and, in returning change, he said (I 
had exchanged no words with him except asking the price), 
"I suppose you can count our money. The piece you 
gave me is a sovereign, which is twenty shillings. This is a 
half-crown, or two shilHngs and sixpence ; here is another, 
making five shilHngs ; this is a two-shilling piece." And so 
he went on, doling out the change to me, and explaining 
with scrupulous care the value of every piece ; while I looked 
on, too full of wrath to speak. 

Then there was another disagreeable incident. On the 
ticket-window shelf was a huge cat with an invitingly glossy 
coat. I set to smoothing it ; when she gave me a lick so 
sudden and unexpected, that I broke a pair of five-shilling 
suspenders in the shock. 

Benevolence has also done much for Edinburgh in the en- 
dowment of several splendid schools, hospitals, and asylums, 
which are erected in the suburbs, and are surrounded by 
beautiful grounds. 

On the High Street there are several ragged-schools, hum- 
ble and unpretentious, but doing good work. 

I spent a few minutes in one of the schools. It was kept 
in one of the old aristocratic houses, six stories high, in a 
narrow close. The first room I was shown into was the 
schoolroom, where two classes of little boys and girls were 
receiving instructions. They were mostly white-headed, and 
all were bare-footed. None of the boys in the institution 
can boast a pair of shoes. The manager could not explain 
why they were clothed and not shod. I passed into differ- 
ent rooms, and found them all engaged in different kinds of 
labor. The latest-comers were cutting blocks of wood up 



280 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

into kindlings to be sold to the citizens. In the milhvright- 
room I found boys twelve years old tending lathes, which 
were turning handles of various sorts from wood ; and they 
were doing the work most creditably. Other boys were en- 
gaged in making scrubbing-brushes ; some were shoe-making ; 
and others, again, were tailoring. They were of all ages, from 
five years to sixteen years, and all busy. The occupants 
are those found on the street at night, begging from Ameri- 
cans, or trying to sell them fusee-matches. They are first 
taken to a magistrate, where their circumstances are carefully 
looked into ; and if they have parents or guardians, and they 
will not keep them from the streets, they are sent by these 
authorities to the schools. 

. Edinburgh has several peculiar features. Next to its site, 
the feature which most impresses a stranger is the great 
number of boys. There are about two million boys in Edin- 
burgh, whose ages range from twelve to fifteen years ; and 
all but nine of them wear Scotch bonnets, either of the Glen- 
gary or other pattern. These boys can be found on every 
street after dark ; but the greater part of them congregate on 
Princess Street, mostly at the post-office ; and, having two 
tubes instead of one in their throats, their facilities for mak- 
ing themselves heard are very superior. 

Still another feature is the fish-women. They may be 
seen at nearly all hours of the day, but more especially in 
the morning. They dress in blue linsey-woolsey, consisting 
of a skirt which reaches just below the knees, and an upper 
garment, something like the waterproof worn by our ladies, 
which is worn over the shoulders and hips in pleasant weath- 
er, and made to protect the head during a storm. They wear 
no other head-covering. They wear low shoes with wooden 
soles. At their back they carry a basket, which is two feet 
square and about three feet deep, with another basket, in 
the shape of a bowl, sitting in the top. A strap fastened to 
the basket, and passing around the forehead of the carrier, 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 28 1 

keeps the goods in shape. Thus equipped, the dame waltzes 
around the city, and sells fish. They are straight, well-built 
women, but not particularly comely in feature. Down by 
the river in the suburbs of the city is their town. It is called 
New Haven, and is almost exclusively occupied by them 
and the smell of fish. There are also two or three taverns 
there, where a splendid meal of fish can be obtained. The 
houses are two or three hundred years old, about two stories 
high, with sharp roofs and enormous stone stoops. On the 
several back courts the space over the pavement is devoted 
to lines, fi-om which dangle bladders, corks, underclothes, 
and other articles. 

The people are Scandinavians, or were Scandinavians sev- 
eral centuries ago, and have not intermarried much since. 
The men make distant sea-trips, being gone for several days, 
and after enduring much hardship, and no inconsiderable 
amount of danger, return with a load of fish, and smelling as 
loud as a fog-horn. They are a hardy, courageous set of 
people, and form a favorite nursery for the British navy. 
They talk good English, but deal particularly in a dialect 
^of their own, which a wise and benevolent Providence re- 
stricts exclusively to themselves. 

The women remain at home, opening mussels, baiting the 
hooks with the contents, attending to the household duties, 
and selling the produce. They are the bankers, from whom 
the men must draw what money they need. 

Being over in the Old Town one day, I noticed a building 
bearing the date of 1792. It looked so absurd and impu- 
dent, thrusting its beardless face under the nose of its vener- 
able companions, that I went in to the owner, and told him 
he ought to be ashamed of himself to stick such a young, 
inexperienced building among the hoary relics of the dim 
past. He was very much affected. He said he would have 
it taken down at once. 

In another stroll, this time along Princess Street, I was 



282 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

astounded beyond expression by the sign of a dyer, which 
contained the well-known addition, " By special appointment 
to her Majesty the Queen." I ^ave read this announce- 
ment on hat-stores without a wink, and even perused it over 
the doors of tobacconists, gents' furnishing-goods stores, and 
the like, without barely a preceptible quiver ; but this was too 
much, — altogether too much. Queen Victoria the patron 
of a dyer ! Imagine the autumnal conversation at Windsor : — 

" Albert Edward, will you be so good as to step into Mr. 
Cameron's when you are in Edinburgh, and see if my car- 
pet-rags are done?" Or, "Alexandra, you had better wear 
your brown poplin this week, and have Mr. Cameron clean 
your blue silk in time for the next drawing-room." Or, 
" Beatrice, tell the Duke of Connaught to leave out his gray 
trousers before he goes away, that I may send them around 
to the dyer's this afternoon, with those hair-ribbons of yours 
which are to be cleaned." 

And she queen of the most powerful nation on the face of 
the earth ! It is awful ! 

I was talking with a gentleman on the subject in the smok- 
ing-room that evening. He said there was a one-legged 
dealer in hair-pins, shoe-laces, and the like, on Leith Street, 
who was patronized by nearly all the crowned heads in Eu- 
rope. I hurried around there early the next morning to 
interview him ; but I did not go in. His name was over the 
door : it was Combs, 

Edinburgh has one institution that can be found nowhere 
else in the United Kingdom : it is two quarts of peanuts. 
They are in a store-window on Market Street, and have prob- 
ably been there for years. I was starded on beholding them. 
I couldn't have been more surprised to have met Niagara 
Falls. 

Speaking of stores reminds me that Edinburgh has many 
handsome ones. Nowhere else in Scotland will you find 
such a display of Scotch goods. There are plaids of every 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 283 

kind in dress-goods ; and they are used to display the inge- 
nuity of man in book-covers, card-cases, napkin-rings, &c. 
The Scotch are a clannish people, and not even in Mid- 
Highlands is it so rampant as in Mid-Lothian. The plaids 
make a fine store-firont and a most picturesque costume. 
I meet one or more Highland-dressed people every day. 
To be a true Highlander requires a noble courage, sandy 
whiskers, and a pair of clean legs. 

The King of Denmark came to Edinburgh while I was 
there ; and the Princess of Wales, his daughter, came to see 
him. How singular and inhuman-like royal people appear ! 
The princess came on to see him without her children, and 
unattended by her husband. I don't understand why the 
husband did not come. I never heard there was any thing 
objectionable about a father-in-law. And the king didn't go 
to see the Queen, and the Queen didn't come to see him. 
He got over her fence ; but she did not go out to greet him, 
nor send to inquire if he would have something warm before 
retiring. That isn't the way common people do : they are 
too well-bred. I wonder if the old gentleman didn't hunger 
to see his grandchildren. He had his vessel in the harbor, 
and came ashore every day, stopping at the Douglas, a quiet, 
unpretentious hotel. 

Whenever he came ashore, or returned to his vessel, there 
was a crowd present. 

I united my commanding presence on the occasion of his 
last departure, to give tone to the proceedings. The street 
in front of the hotel was jammed with anxious faces. It was 
raining. We waited full an hour. There were three carriages 
drawn up in front of the curb in waiting. Every five or ten 
minutes a portly chap would run out and re-arrange one of 
the carriages. Every time he did it I would creep up on my 
toes, and stretch my neck to its utmost tension ; but nothing 
came of it. I had just reached the conclusion to go around 
there and knock his head off, when the king appeared, and 



284 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

walked down the carpets to the carriage. The princess came 
immediately behind him. He is a pleasant-looking gentle- 
man, but nothing remarkable. There is no satisfaction in 
contemplating a king. That is one of the things I have found 
out since being in Europe. The princess wore a blue water- 
proof, and a rather shabby-looking jockey. Had she not 
been a princess she would have met that crowd in the rain, 
with a light-blue satin dress and a hundred-dollar hat ; but 
she would not have received a more cordial manifestation of 
delight than came from that crowd of moist but enthusiastic 
individuals. Even I emitted a half-yell of pleasure. 

It is rather singular, that, with all my going to and fro, I 
have not seen a lord. I have seen princes and dukes, and a 
few kings, but never a lord. 

I devoted one day to Melrose Abbey. It is a well-con- 
ducted ruin. The heart of Bruce lies within its walls, and 
about ten thousand Pringles are buried just outside of them. 
The Pringle family must have proved a perfect godsend to 
the undertakers in the neighborhood. 

There are nearly five hundred old castles in this vicinity. 
Queen Mary was imprisoned in all of them. That unfortu- 
nate must have been in jail about four-fifths of the time. 

What I now want, what I really pant after, is a rijin that 
wasn't her prison, that Sir Walter Scott hasn't written about, 
and that Queen Victoria didn't visit in 1842. 

But I don't know where to look for it. 

Not far from Edinburgh is a beautiful edifice called Ros1)T1 
Chapel. It was built some four hundred years ago, but has 
been kept in perfect repair by the Earls of Roslyn, who own it. 
The ornamentation is of the most extravagant kind, and, as it 
is done in stone, must have cost money. But what particu- 
larly struck me about the chapel is a column that transcends 
all the others in device and execution. It is called "The 
Prentice Pillar ; " and there is a tradition in connection with 
it, to the effect that the builder of the chapel went to Rome 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 285 

to Study up something for a column, to be more gorgeous 
than all the others. When he got back, he saw, to his great 
vexation, that the apprentice had, in his absence, built a pil- 
lar that danced all around any thing the old man had secured, 
Orientally speaking. He was so chagrined by the occurrence, 
that he picked up a hammer, and the apprentice was buried 
from his late residence two days after. This is the pillar. 

That is a remarkable story ; but it is true. I know it is 
true ; for it is just like an apprentice, when his boss is absent, 
to just lay himself out on work, and to lie awake night after 
night planning how he can best employ the time next day 
in advancing his employer's interests. I haven't heard such 
a natural and upright anecdote as that is in a long while. It 
is so true, so lifelike ! 

I have been an apprentice myself, and the number of 
times I have been knocked down by a hammer for slaving 
and toiling during my employer's absence no one can tell. 

I recollect that on one occasion he started into the village 
for a pound of eightpenny nails. I thought he would be 
gone about an hour, and had just stepped around back of a 
fence to have a game of seven-up with a friend, when he 
returned. 

Those were the days of youth and hope. How I love to 
linger over them ! But they are gone, and can never return 
to us. 

He had had his boots double-soled the day before. 



286 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

SCUDDING THROUGH THE HIGHLANDS. 

GLASGOW is, to speak mildly, the dirtiest city I have 
seen. It possesses a j5opulatioi-u of nearly six hundred 
thousand, and it is as busy as it can be in manufactures and 
commerce ; but it is fearfully dirty. George's Square, oppo- 
site my hotel, has a commanding statue of Scott, a smaller 
one of Peel, and several representing other people. It has 
broad walks and grass-plots, and tobacco-quids and cigar- 
stumps, and old junk, and spores of ragged, dirty children, 
and sleeping, beastly-looking ruffians. It is a city that boils 
up chemicals, and profanes the atmosphere with the stench ; 
that breeds crime and filth by the wholesale ; and that has 
transformed the beautiful Clyde into a damnable sewer, whose 
smell is louder than a park of artillery. 

We reached Glasgow at four p.m., but commenced to smell 
it at a quarter-j^ast three. Glasgow thinks it wants a new 
harbor ; but what it really needs is some chloride of lime. 
But, after all, were it not for chemical compounding, and 
the Clyde, Glasgow would be a handsome city. In point 
of architectural merit it is superior to Edinburgh ; and its 
streets are straight, and of good width. 

We left Glasgow as soon as possible, taking the cars to 
Greenock, where the Clyde sewer ends, and the Clyde River 
begins again. There we took steamer for a circular tour of 
Scotland, going by boat among the isles, and through the 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 287 

*■ 

lochs (lakes) , to the north of the country, and coming back 
by rail on the other side. This was done. under the auspices 
of the Caledonian Railway, and was productive of considera- 
ble entertainment. 

I got into Greenock of a Saturday night ; and, being a 
conspicuous patron of the drama, I attended the theatre at 
once. The play or the place is not deserving of special 
notice ; but the audience was, without exception, the most 
enthusiastic I have seen. Upon the dropping of the curtain 
at the end of an act, the stamping, yelHng, and clapping of 
hands, swept through the building like a hurricane, both 
deafening and crazing the more temperate hearers. I have 
seen a Rocky-Mountain audience applaud ; but it was a 
sort of unsuccessful funeral in comparison to this Greenock 
gathering. 

The next day I attended an Established Church of the 
Scotch persuasion, and not only enjoyed the sermon, but 
was much interested in the construction of the building and 
the features of the service. It was a large building with a 
capacious porch. Opposite the door in this porch were two 
large copper basins about the size that would delight a New- 
England housewife who contemplated a batch of Thanksgiv- 
ing-pies. Each of these pans was about one-half full of 
pennies and silver-pieces. Nearly every one who came in 
added from his pile to those ; and, by the time the service 
commenced, a very good sum had been realized. This is 
the way the weekly contribution is taken up in the Scotch 
church ; and a very successful plan I judge it to be. The 
inside of the church was peculiarly divided. The pulpit 
was attached to the organ-case, and the choir sat in a box- 
seat in front of the pulpit. There were three galleries, of 
enormous seating-capacity. Two lines of seats ran from the 
front to the pulpit. The other seats formed a right angle to 
those. The last three seats at the rear were tiered above 
each other, and the last of all was some four feet above the 



288 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

floor. The feet of the occupants rested on a board, which 
so far from covered the space as to leave room for the care- 
less party to step off, and become temporarily oblivious to the 
rest of the congregation. The church seated two thousand 
people, and was well filled on this occasion. All Scotch 
churches have extensive seating-capacity. The Church of 
Scotland is similar to the Church of England in that its 
clergy wear the gown and surplice ; and it was like, until very 
recently, in another and more important particular, in that 
it was governed by patronage ; in other words, its offices 
were in the gift of some certain party. 

The rector of the Church of England is in for life. He 
obtains the position from the nobleman or bishop who owns 
the living, and retains it at the pleasure of the givers. When 
a church loses its pastor, it does not call a score of others 
to march in sermonic procession before it, from which, after 
severe and not unanimous criticism, it choses one to its 
liking ; but the owner of the living is seen by the friends 
of Mr. Jones, and Mr. Jones is forthwith installed without 
troubling the congregation. An English congregation is 
rather restricted in opportunities for making mischief and 
dividing itself. In return, the congregations with objectiona- 
ble clergymen take their revenge by staying at home. 

Besides the basins, the porch of this and of all Scotch 
churches has another attraction. On the walls are black- 
boards, with golden letters giving the names of such people 
in the parish who have donated sums of money to the sus- 
tenance of the poor or other worthy objects. 

Greenock is an independent smelling community on its own 
hook. On that Saturday night, Hamilton Street (which is its 
main thoroughfare, and where the hotels were located) , trying 
to catch a mouthful of pure air, was crowded with people. 
The sidewalks were full, and the pavement covered with peo- 
ple. These old-country people will never, I fear, get over the 
habit of walking in the roadway. Their forefathers had no 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 289 

sidewalks, and the mild species of vagrancy that order of 
things established is entailed on their children. As a gen- 
eral thing, you will find full as many people in the street as 
on the sidewalks ; and of a Sunday the roadway will be cov- 
ered with nicely-dressed folks going to or from church as 
cheerfully as though on the flags. 

But it can be said of the pavements here that they are 
smooth and clean, with no gutters filled with stagnant water. 
Besides, it is a picturesque sight, looking down an avenue 
evenly dotted over its entire face with moving people and 
changing colors of dress. 

On this Saturday evening in particular, with about ten 
million various musicians thumping out sweet strains along 
it, a man with any love of the varied and bright might stand 
there and enjoy it for an hour, if he could hold his nose that 
length of time. 

At nine o'clock the next morning I got on board the 
steamer " lona," and began the sail. " The lona " is called in 
the hand-bills and advertisements " the celebrated steamer," 
" the famous steamer," &c. After seeing the rusty hearses used 
on the Thames for pleasure-purposes, " The lona " is a gratify- 
ing spectacle. It is not an elaborate steamer ; but it is of good 
size, has two funnels (a circumstance every Scotchman feel- 
ingly calls your attention to), and a cabin finely upholstered. 
The deck-room for an all-day trip is not " numerous ; " but 
the vessel is clean, the officers keep their mouths shut, and 
the stewards are attentive. 

I had a very delightful sail. 

The coast on this side of Scotland is a mass of islands, 
those of lona and Staffa being the most famous, — the former 
for its ruins, and the latter for its striking natural features ; 
and inside are an almost equal number of lochs, or lakes, 
which are famous for their placid waters and enormous 
mountains. Everybody who comes to Scotland takes a tour 
through the lakes, which he must do to be fashionable. 



290 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

Not that I wish to be understood as representing that the 
lake-scenery of Scotland possesses no attractions aside from 
the inexorable decree of fashion : on the contrary, the views 
thus obtained are grand in the farthest extreme. But thou- 
sands go over the routes every year who are certain a hill 
is a hill, and nothing more ; and, while others are rapt with 
the scenery, they are nearly prostrate with the expense. 

There are several routes, the most popular being through 
the Trossarhs, and the most beautiful by way of the Cale- 
donia Canal. Phonetically the Trossachs have an advantage 
over the canal. One-half of the people who have been through 
the Trossachs don't know what they are. I have asked sev- 
eral the definition ; but they were unable to give it. But they 
thought I ought not to miss seeing them. 

But I have, and did it purposely. 

You see, dear reader, the Trossachs are a series of hills and 
glens skirting Loch Achray, very wild and grand, and made 
famous by a poem called "The Lady of the Lake," written by 
a gentleman named Scott. The two principal characters are 
a clan chieftain named Rhoderick Dhu, and a nobleman 
named Fitz-James. I never read the poem : but it was 
acted at our school-exhibition ; and, besides getting a spur 
of a pine in my eye while taking the precarious character of 
one of the clan attached to Mr. Dhu, I v/as kept after school 
while he and Fitz-James were rehearsing one evening, and 
during the dialogue got the most triumphant and comprehen- 
sive licking at the hands of the teacher that I ever received 
while shinning up the hill of knowledge. 

I can't hear the name of the Trossachs to this day with- 
out shivering. 

Throughout the route, one feature of the hills was partic- 
ularly noticeable, — they were not cultivated. In some 
instances they were covered by trees ; in others they were 
perfectly bald. They rose up in rapid succession, one tow- 
ering beyond the other, presenting but little animal life, 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 2gi 

but looking grand and impressive in their rugged strength. 
I have seen higher mountains in the Sierra-Nevada range, 
and more striking views in the Rocky Mountains ; but 
neither possessed the quiet beauty of these eminences. The 
Scottish hills may be void of trees or cultivation ; but they 
are not utterly barren of vegetation. Where there are no 
trees or grass, there is the heather ; and at this season, being 
in blossom, it robed the hills in a bright purple. 

In the evening, with the boat gliding almost noiselessly 
through the water, and a full moon lighting up both lake and 
hill, the spectacle on either side, behind or ahead, was so 
quietly beautiful, that an observer would allow his cigar to 
remain idly in his hands before he would so wantonly 
encroach upon the spell to ask for a light. 

When scenery lets a man's cigar go out, it is scenery worth 
visiting. 

We ascended Loch Fyne to a place called Avdrishaig 
(if you are going to pronounce these Scotch names, you 
must be in earnest about it : the man who pauses to fool 
around them is irretrivably lost). Here we were to take a 
steamer through the Crinan Canal, — a short cut between 
Loch Fyne and the sea-channel. We left "The lona," and, 
grasping our carpet-bag tight in our hand, fought our way to 
the canal-steamer through a million boys determined to do 
something to us ; but as they couched their intentions in pure 
Gaelic, slightly adulterated with an infusion of unfortunate 
English, I didn't make out what they were up to. I subse- 
quently ascertained that they wanted to carry my valise. 

I presume this might be called the Highlands of Scotland ; 
but several weeks' residence here has taught me that the 
Highlands are something like " out West " in the States, — a 
section vaguely located just beyond, and partaking some- 
what of the characteristic popularly attributed to the flea. 
But there is no doubt that it is the land of Benjamin. There 
are Ben Lomond, and Ben Nevis, and Ben Ledi, and Ben 



292 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

Cruachan, and Ben Lawaher, and every other Ben of any 
note, excepting Ben Butler. The lower side of the canal is 
extensively cultivated in grass. We passed numerous fields 
where the haymakers were at work securing the crop. The 
men mowed ; and the women followed after, turning over the 
swath with their hands, or making the cured hay into piles. 
Not a rake was to be seen in the fields. All the work was 
performed by the women with their hands. They worked 
hard, and got thirty cents a day ; that is, a dollar and eighty 
cents a week. They wore a short skirt, and some of them 
sported a breastpin. But they were not a proud set. 

We passed through nine locks in succession ; and, while the 
boat was thus tediously progressing, most of us got off and 
walked the distance along the tow-path. 

I walked part of the way with an old gentleman who was 
nearly eighty years of age. He said he had often, when 
young, walked forty miles in a day ; but he was old now, and 
could only creep along. I made several attempts to make a 
suitable reply ; but it took so much of my wind to keep up 
with him, that I had to forego the pleasure. He would have 
laughed forty treadmills to scorn. 

On leaving the canal at the litde village of Crinan we 
were transferred to a commodious steamer, and pursued our 
way to Oban. Here the large bulk of passengers dwindled 
to a small number, as Oban is the sailing-point to lona and 
Staffa Islands, and has the best hotel accommodation of any 
place on the lake-route. It is a new village comparatively, 
and owes what size it has attained to tourists. From the 
boat can be seen the ruins of Dunolly Castle. It used to be 
a tempestuous place of residence when the MacDougals 
slashed and killed as they j^leased, and feasted on the fat of 
the land without napkins. It now belongs to the youthful 
and flaxen-haired Marquis of Lome, who married a daughter 
of Queen Victoria. My landlord at Greenock had him for 
a several-hours' guest a few weeks ago, and mentioned in a 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 293 

broken voice that the marquis called for his mutton-chop 
in the coffee-room, and ate it as composedly as an ordinary 
chap could have done. The castle was admirably located 
for defence, being on a bold headland of rock at the water's 
edge. The workmen must have come from the city ; and 
were probably killed when the building was finished, to avoid 
paying them. Many a poor devil has been openly murdered 
in bonnie Scotland on far less provocation. 

Near to Oban, between the Islands of Jura and Scarbra, is 
the celebrated whirlpool which figures in legend and modern 
fiction as a place of destruction through the power of its 
current, and the rapacity of enormous monsters which are 
supposed to be concealed within its appalHng surface. For 
a thousand years or so, the awful reputation of this spot has 
continued unimpaired. Now some scientific people come 
forward and claim that it is merely a strong tide, broken by a 
submarine rock. I could have got a row-boat at Oban, and 
personally investigated the whirlpool, but preferred believing 
what I heard to trusting to what I might see. As for the 
monsters, they have vacated the whirlpools, and taken posi- 
tions as waiters in the hotels. 

We reached the little pier at Ballachulish just before dusk, 
having, since leaving Oban, passed through some of the 
finest mountain-ranges on the trip, while the bosom of the 
lake was as placid as the shores were rugged and tumultuous. 
We paid eight cents each for the privilege of landing on the 
pier, which belonged to Lord Somebody, who took this 
method for reimbursing himself. 



294 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 



A RUINED UPBURST. 



THE next morning, after breakfast, I started for a six- 
mile walk up the Glen of Coe. It was a beautiful 
morning, and the road was in excellent condition. I notice 
that the Highlanders understand the uses of precipitous 
hills, and do not attempt to run turnpikes up them. These, 
and all other roads I have traversed, were comparatively 
level, while the residences are built on the lowlands. They 
keep the hills here to look at and admire. 

About a mile on the way I came to the village proper of 
Ballachulish, — a long, straggling street, with one-story stone 
houses, dirty, ill-kept, and squalid from every aspect. It is a 
slate-quarrying country, and the people who occupy these 
dens are the workers in the mines. It was a holiday, being 
pay-day; and some few of the children were washed, out 
of respect to the day ; and the men were idling about. 
Huge piles of broken slate, the refuse of the quarries, lay on 
every side, in some spots formed into enormous hillocks. A 
few hundred years hence they will be covered with soil and 
vegetation ; and, on excavating them, the broken slate will 
come to view, and the entire world of geology and science 
will be convulsed with excitement over the singular devel- 
opment. Miserable and broken roofs would naturally be 
expected in this country of slate ; and here they are. It is 
always the carpenter's gate that won't shut well, and the 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 295 

shoemaker's wife that goes poorly shod. The children were 
active beggars. They swarmed from the cottages, and fol- 
lowed behind me, screaming for pennies. 

Poor bairns ! they little dreamed that I was an editor. 

The people were none of the brightest. The men were 
soggy-looking, and, in answer to simple questions, worked 
with great difficulty. On passing one cottage, the sound of a 
fife was heard. The player was trying to catch the air of 
Old Hundred. All fife-learners start on that abused tune. 
I once felt a call to play a fife, and made my debut with that 
tune. My father used to stand it as long as he could ; then 
he would pull his hat down over his eyes, and dash madly 
out of the house. The cultivation of his ear had been neg- 
lected in his youth. 

The road, as it entered the glen, crossed the turbulent little 
stream which is the River Coe, and followed it up to its head. 

I had asked several people on the way how far it was to 
the site of the massacre ; but they could not tell me. I 
explained to one of them what massacre meant ; and he 
immediately inquired in a shocked voice, "Did it happen 
o' late?" — "About two hundred years ago," I incidentally 
observed. He went away. 

I continued to move along the road. On my right rose 
the hills to the light flying clouds : on my left were harvesters 
at work in the grain, the crooked river, morass, and swamps ; 
beyond them the opposing host of hills. Here and there a 
mountain-stream rushed across the road, and I was obliged 
to pick my way over it on the exposed bits of stone. I saw 
three boys approaching. When they saw me they stepped 
from the road in among the grass and bushes, and presently 
returned, bearing something in their hands. The something 
proved to be a half-dozen bits of coarse weed, which they 
pressed me to purchase, under the delusion that they were 
flowers. They wanted a penny each for them ; but we finally 
compromised for a halfpenny. They knew nothing of the 



296 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW, 

place of the massacre. The minds of horticulturists don't 
run much to history, I have noticed. 

I passed but two cottages ; but the adults were away in 
the fields. I pressed on, the valley or glen narrowing as I 
advanced, but maintaining the same features just noticed. 
I had read a full description of the glen. The writer said, — 

" It is the gloomiest, wildest, most impressive, of the High- 
land glens ; presents aspects of grandeur, savageness, and 
mystery, that tell powerfully on a vivid imagination. ... Its 
flanks so closely confront each other, flank to flank, soar so 
weirdly from barren base to shattered summit, abound so 
profusely in caverns, fissures, and tottering cliffs, and shut 
out so darkly the light of- day, as to seem to be rather an 
upburst from a ruined world than any portion of the fair 
surface of the earth." 

This bit of description pleased me very much, and I com- 
mitted it to memory. I liked it because there was nothing 
flowery about it ; but it was just a simple and unostentatious 
explanation of the glen and its prominent features. All about 
me was pretty, but rather tame. I wanted to get among 
the weirdness and upbursts,so in keeping with the atrocious 
crime which has given its name to history. 

I had gone about six miles, when I met a party returning. 
They were not a cheerful party. They had been two miles 
beyond the point of our meeting, but had not seen the site 
of the massacre ; neither had they found any one who 
could give them the desired information. I described the 
place, giving the gable of a ruined cottage as the landmark. 
They had passed that, but had paid no attention to it. It 
was a few hundred yards beyond. What they expected to 
find was a monument, and perhaps one or two bodies. 

But there is neither, — nothing whatever to indicate the 
awful spot but this simple, tottering gable of a ruined cot- 
tage. Tradition says it was the home of the Macdonald, 
the old chief of the clan ; but the tradition is not local, as no 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 29/ 

one in this neighborhood, descendants of the respected 
old clan, knows aught of the massacre, let alone any of the 
particulars or location. But it was here that, nearly two hun- 
dred years ago, the massacre took place. 

William the Third was on the throne. James the Seventh 
had forfeited his crown, and was a fugitive in France. The 
Highlanders, being Catholics, were loyal to the skedaddhng 
monarch, and opposed to the Protestant reign of WilHam. 
Battles and skirmishes, murders, &c., were common between 
the loyal and the disaffected. Finally the patience of William 
was exhausted ; and, at the suggestion of the secretary of 
state of Scotland, a proclamation was issued, calling upon the 
chiefs of the clans to give in their adhesion to the new gov- 
ernment on a certain day, or their people would be annihi- 
lated. The chiefs hastened to obey ; but Macdonald, wishing 
to be the last, delayed until just before the day appointed, 
when a heavy snow-storm so blocked up the roads, that, 
although he used all haste, he did not arrive at the post until 
several days after the required date. The sheriff, however, 
received his pledge, and forwarded it to the state department : 
but the wily secretary, desiring to gratify a private grudge 
against the old chief, kept the truth from William ; and that 
monarch ordered the torch and sword to be turned upon the 
inhabitants of Glencoe. 

It was a snowy day when the king's troops came upon the 
little village. They came with protestations of friendship, 
and were hospitably received, and for several days were en- 
tertained by the unsuspecting people. At midnight, after 
they had tested to the utmost the kindness of the Macdon- 
alds, they arose, and burst upon the people with the sud- 
denness of a simoom. 0\(^ and young, men and women, 
the bowed man and prattling child, fell beneath the un- 
merciful bullet and cruel steel, or were brained by the axe, 
or perished in the flames of their homes. Many of the 
Macdonalds escaped by the glens, but only by a miracle, as 



298 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WmDOW. 

it was an intensely cold night, and they were thinly clad. 
Thirty-eight were murdered outright, and a number froze to 
death on the hills. That was their idea of persuasion in 
those days. 

It is very quiet now. There is not a vestige of the 
slaughter, — nothing but this old gable. I turned away, and 
slowly retraced my steps, thinking of that January night in 
the seventeenth century. 

There is a disappointment in the features of the glen. 
Those tremendous precipices, and gloomy glens, and weird 
peaks, are not to be seen. It is a pretty valley : the ridges 
are majestic, the fields bright and golden, the river a silver 
band winding among them. But, to find the sombre and 
gloomy points, one must be excessively bihous. It won't do 
to seek the oppressive in Glencoe while carrying an active 
liver in your anatomy. You may take my word for that. 

I saw only one object that seemed to agree with the 
extract I have copied. He was asleep on a pile of stones, 
and was ragged and dirty to excess. I awoke him, and 
asked him if he was an upburst from a ruined world. He 
said he wasn't ; but I could see he was prevaricating. 

That evening the boat came up to the pier again. Again 
we paid a fourpence, and sailed away through Loch Linnhie, 
around the base of the mountains to Bannavie, where we 
disembarked, were packed into an omnibus, and drifted 
away, through a mile of darkness, to the Loch-Eil Arms. A 
steaming supper was in waiting in the coffee-room. My 
English friends suggested supper ; but I declined. I had 
been there before ; and I was too tired to carry on through 
the night, and fight whole battalions of deformed fiends. 

I saw the hungry ones pass into the coffee-room, and 
smelt the steak until I lost my balance and joined the pro- 
cession. I took steak twice, and a few cups of tea, and 
some hot pickles. Then I went to bed. This was eleven 
o'clock. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 299 

About two o'clock a.m. I stepped out of bed at the rate 
of about a mile and a half to the minute, and rang for a 
Sedlitz. The boots brought it at once, filled a tumbler half 
full of water, and added the powder ; but there was nothing 
to stir it with. I said I would look in my clothes for a pen- 
cil. But he said he could manage it well enough, and imme- 
diately drew forth a venerable pocket-comb, and proceeded 
to agitate the powder with it in a prompt yet graceful man- 
ner, and then passed the glass to me. I thanked him for 
the infinitude of his resources, but told him I would let the 
powder settle before I drank it, as the sediments disturbed 
my stomach. 

In the morning we walked beyond several canal-locks to 
the boat, — a canal-steamer of good size and speed, — and 
began our trip to Inverness. 

Opposite Bannavie is a mountain whose summit is per- 
petually covered with snow, and there»is one man who hopes 
it always will be so. He has a farm at the base, and holds 
the lease without payment until the snow disappears from 
the mountain-top. Twice within his occupation has the 
August sun nearly deprived him of his home. It is a singu- 
lar contract, but no more so than many which exist through- 
out the old country, arising from the eccentricity of the lords 
of the soil. In the suburbs of London a man has a block 
of buildings. He pays the ground-rent regularly, as his 
fathers did before him. The ground-rent is a single barley- 
corn, which he carries to the noble owner, with becoming 
gravity, every Michaelmas Day ; and the owner receives it as 
circumspectly as if it were several hundred pounds. 

Dean Stanley rents a 'property for which he receives a lump 
of earth every rent-day. But, then, this is more sensible 
than either the snow or barleycorn ; for, if he keeps every 
lump of earth, he will soon have another piece of real estate. 

The artificial channel, or that portion of the" Caledonia 
Canal which connects Lochs Oich and Ness, abounds with 



300 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

locks. We have several which lift us up to a level high 
above the lakes, and another series which let us down to the 
lake level. 

We got out again at the beginning of the locks, and walked 
to Fort Augustus, — three miles. As we approached Fort 
Augustus, we met several women selling oatcake and milk. 

The oatmeal-cake is common in this country. One of 
the national characteristics of Scotland is oatmeal. Made 
into cakes, it is thin, a whitish brown, and resembles some- 
what home-made yeast- cakes. I can describe its appearance 
with ease ; but no words of mine or of any other man can 
give an adequate idea of its taste. 

It was the staple article of food in the early wars of this 
people ; and, after taking a bite, one ceases to wonder at the 
reckless bravery they displayed. I ate only two square 
inches of a thin cake, and was immediately seized with a 
ferocious desire to stab somebody. In fact, I tried to 
inveigle the boatswain back of the pilot-house, with a sincere 
determination to cut him open ; and, had he not been other- 
wise engaged, he would to-day be gathered to his fathers 
and other relatives. 

I have not touched the cake since. 

Another article of sale at Fort Augustus was walking-sticks. 
Those would be about the last article you would suppose 
any one would buy ; but the Scotch and English passengers 
made purchases. Some of them had a stick already; but 
they each got another one. One man had three sticks and 
an umbrella ; but he bought one of the Fort- Augustus sticks. 
He told me that none of us could tell what might happen ; 
our lives hang by a thread, as it were ; and we couldn't have 
too many sticks. 

We now entered on Loch Ness, with mountains on both 
sides, and sailed away at a good speed. 

A gentleman who came on the boat at one of the piers, 
a resident in the neighborhood, told me that the loch was 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 3OI 

never frozen ; and that, during the earthquake at Lisbon, it 
was considerably agitated. How to account for this he did 
not know ; but such was the fact. 

At Foyers, merely .a pier (fourpence) , the boat stopped 
to enable the passengers to see the celebrated falls. Two 
'buses were in waiting, and were immediately filled ; while a 
number of us took a short cut up the side of the ridge, or 
rather shoulder, of the mountainous range which hid the 
cataract from us. 

On a level road, the distance would not have been more 
than a mile ; but' up the path we struggled along it was about 
twelve miles going, and a half-mile returning. 

We stopped at the top with the 'buses ; and, passing through 
a rough gate, we let ourselves down the steep side, with the 
roar of the cataract sounding in our ears. Nearer and 
nearer it grew as we slipped and slid toward the point where 
we were to observe it, until we came out from the birchens, 
and in sudden and unexpected sight of the spectacle. 

The Niagara Falls and I are natives of the same country. 
I steadily clung to this fact all the way up and over the hill ; 
and I was fully prepared to laugh at this contemptuous at- 
tempt of the Scotch to get up a falls. 

But I did not laugh. I stood on a jutting point of rock, 
about half way from the caldron to the top of the falls ; and. 
I had the whole immediately in front of me. And so grand 
a spectacle I never before witnessed. A hundred feet or 
more, the rock towered on each side above where the river 
escaped over the precipice. Where it spurted over the edge, 
it was hardly more than two feet in diameter, coming through 
an aperture of that size worn into the rock, and coming with 
such force into the confined channel, that it was actually 
twisted partly around as it escaped, and plunged a hundred 
and fifty feet down the precipitous rock. Below was a cal- 
dron, boiling, whirling, wriggling, struggling, conquering, and 
then shooting away with a defiant roar through the gorge 
beyond. 



302 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

A mile and a half away from this spot the little river com- 
mences its wonderful descent, bounding over rocks, running 
along bits of level track, lapping up every rivulet on the way, 
and gathering all its power and resources for this one grand 
leap. Niagara drops down from its height with Roman dig- 
nity ; the falls in the Yosemite Valley spend their strength 
before they reach the base, and fall in tatters : but the Foy- 
ers rush through that aperture like a rocket, and descend 
into the distant caldron below with unabated speed. Rising 
from its descent, as if to veil its anger, is an eternal column 
of mist, always moving, always there. About on all sides 
are the blackened crags, wet and melancholy ; and here and 
there on their scarred and dreadful faces are beds of bright 
green moss, and springing trees of silver-birch, with weeping 
twigs and leaves. 

So grand, so solemnly beautiful, is the scene, that I feel as 
if I could drop down on the jutting rock, and feast my eyes 
forever upon its glory ; but on a boatman crying out, " Hi, 
there ! it's time to go," I amend the resolution, and leave 
forthwith. 

If any one asks you what sort of a country Scotland is, 
you can reply, without the faintest vestige of emotion, that it 
is lumpy. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 3O3 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 



HIGHLAND FEATURES. 



THERE is nothing of special historical interest about 
Inverness. It is a flourishing city of a few antique 
and many modern streets, and is called " The Queen of the 
Highlands." Its cemetery occupies an eminence called 
Tomnahurch, where, a long time ago, the fairies resorted on 
moonlight excursions, and had dances, ginger-pop, and 
cakes. There are no fairies now. The past hundred years 
have been poor years for them. 

A day or two after our arrival it was cheese market-day, 
when on several of the streets were drawn up an array of 
farmers' carts containing cakes of the luscious delicacy. The 
people of Great Britain are mighty fond of cheese, and are 
doing a vast service to other nations by destroying great 
quantities of the dangerous stuff. 

Most of the carts were attended by buxom women, with 
white close muslin caps, called mutches, on their heads. 
And not only these, but all the women of the lower classes 
to be met with in the Highlands, wear a similar head-gear. 

Here and there on the main streets are little stands for 
the vending of toys and molasses-cakes. They are attended 
by old women in mutches, come on the morning of market- 
day, and in the evening go again, — whither I don't know. 

Inverness is valuable to a tourist as giving him a good 
glimpse of Highland life and customs. The Highland wo- 



304 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDO\y. 

men of the lower classes — and it is these classes you find in 
abundance in the cities, as there are many poor in Britain — 
are of masculine cast, and wonderfully healthy in appearance. 
They are mostly bare-armed, and you meet them on every 
street. Their lungs would shame many a blacksmith-bel- 
lows ; and when one of them comes out of a close, and calls 
" Sandy ! " that young man promptly appears. The Scotch 
are even more strict in parental discipline than are the Eng- 
lish ; and that seems needless. The juveniles are got to bed 
at an early hour ; those in the better classes retiring at eight 
o'clock in the summer, and even earlier in the winter. And 
it is not only the fact that they are got to bed ; but they go 
as promptly and as irresistibly as if fired out of a mortar. 
At the table they ask for what they want, and preserve a 
petrified tongue throughout the meal, unless spoken to. I 
have had the pleasure of being entertained by many families 
in this country ; but I can recall no act of fretfulness by 
children at the table. 

An English gentleman, the father of four lovely children, 
told me, if he thought his children would grow up rude and 
disagreeable, he would prefer yielding them to the grave now. 

The Highland women form a picturesque object when 
washing out blankets and quilts, as they stamp them with 
their bare feet, their skirts being pinned up to their knees. 
But this is only done in the washing of heavy articles, and 
not with the cleansing of linen, as the photographic cards in 
the Lowland print-shops would indicate. To a greater ex- 
tent here than in England do the women perform out-door 
labor. They are in charge of the farmer's cart of produce ; 
they work in the potato and harvest fields (even cultivating 
the grain), in the fisheries, and also in the peat-beds. To 
all appearance they are as strong as the men, and, justice 
compels me to add, more active. 

The men and women have a strong brogue, and are fre- 
quently difficult to understand. " Dinna " for didn't, " yon " 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 305 

for those or that, " muckle " for much, and " ken " for 
know, are broad dayhght to a good part of their phrases. 
When they go exclusively into the Gaelic, the hearer col- 
lapses at once : even a Welshman will run on such an occa- 
sion. They are poorer than any other people I have yet 
come across ; but they are hard-working, and the poverty is 
not altogether their fault. 

The Highland costume is common in Inverness ; but it is 
not a common garb to the people. It is worn mostly by the 
gentry in the hunting-season, and is a favorite garb with the 
Duke of Edinburgh, when in the Highlands. The measure 
adopted after the rebellion of the clans in favor of Prince 
Charles Edward, prohibiting clan meetings and the clan 
dress, struck the death-blow to the most picturesque mascu- 
line costume ever in vogue, from Adam to Dr. Mary Walker. 
Quite frequently, however, I meet some farmer in the kilt 
and stockings ; and there are a few in the Highlands who 
wear them the year around. They are not a most comforta- 
ble dress in these breezy, wet autumn days ; and are much 
less so in the winter, when these hills and moors are covered 
with snow, and a keen frosty wind sweeps through* the glens. 
The dress consists now of a sack-coat, — instead of the plaid 
waist of former times, and the long plaid wrapped about the 
body for protection, — a kilt, or a yard or two of tartan gath- 
ered in tucks at the upper edge, and wound about the hips, 
and fastened at the waist, and of sufficient width to permit it 
to reach within one or three inches of the knees. Under 
this is a pair of muslin or woollen drawers of sufficient length 
to cover the thighs, but hardly long enough to be re-assur- 
ing to the sensitive observer on a windy day. From these 
drawers to the tops of the stockings, which come nearly up 
to the knees, the legs are bare, and are exposed to all kinds 
of weather. Yet the wearers do not suffer from the exposure 
any more than one does from having his face uncovered. I 
can understand this with those who were brought up in the 



306 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

dress, and wear it the year round ; but how those who adopt 
it only occasionally — the autumn hunting-season being one 
of the occasions — keep comfortable these chilly days is 
beyond my comprehension. It is not a dress adapted to 
blackberrying, nor to a mole on the leg. 

I was much struck with the patient, hopeful expression of 
all classes of the Highland people when it rained. They 
moved about without umbrellas, and were as composed as if 
in a tunnel. When it rains very hard they put on an opera- 
glass, and sail around with a smile. And it rains here when 
you ain't looking. There has been but one clear day in the 
past three weeks, and then I thought it was going to snow. 
The weather is astonishingly uneven. In the morning the sun 
will come forth as clear as amber, and an hour later it will 
be drearily raining. Another morning the sky will be leaden, 
and dripping with moisture, and every thing look favorable 
for a " Hne-storm." You step into the hall for an umbrella ; 
and when you come forth the sun is shining, and people are 
swearing at the street-sprinkler for a lazy, neglectful wretch. 

The wages of mechanics are just about the same as they are 
in England ; but Scotch farm-laborers are now better paid, get- 
ting fifteen and twenty shillings (three dollars and seventy-five 
cents and five dollars) per week. It was not long ago that 
they got less than two dollars a week. In harvest-time they 
get, in some places, six per cent above present prices. The 
natural independence of the people explains this. When they 
cannot get enough money here to support themselves, they 
go elsewhere. At one time it did look as if the farming 
population would dwindle entirely away, and the farmers 
were obhged to increase tke pay. There was no Arch here : 
it was simply the law of supply and demand regulating mat- 
ters. The laborers are hired every six months. For this 
purpose there is held twice a year, in the large cities, a " fee- 
ing-market." It continues two days ; and, during its session, 
the High Street of the city is crowded full of farm-hands 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 307 

waiting for an engagement, and of farmers looking for help. 
The former are accompanied by their sweethearts or wives, 
and the latter frequently have their women-folks along. The 
scene is naturally one of animation. Both parties are dressed 
in holiday attire, and in good nature. The farmers select 
their help, and bind the engagement by giving each party a 
shilling. The shiHing immediately goes into active circula- 
tion. The swain takes his girl by the arm, and moves to the 
nearest public-house ; and quite frequently a coveted engage- 
ment brings an uncoveted headache. The married man has, 
with some landlords, a cottage rent-free, and a bit of ground 
to raise potatoes for himself, and a ton or so of coal per 
annum, with the wages of the single man in addition. There 
is considerable complaint, from those interested in alleviating 
the condition of the farming-laborers, of the centraHzation 
of farm-lands into large estates. The crofts, which were 
allotments farmed by those of narrow means, have been swal- 
lowed up into the large farms ; and their owners have been 
swept into the ranks of the common laborers. It is only men 
of some means %'ho are now able to farm ; and it is said 
of them, that they keep themselves separated from their 
working-people, and that, in consequence, the condition of 
the latter is steadily lowering. I think the last objection can 
be brought against shopmen, brokers, mine-proprietors, and 
every business-man. This is a country of class, and must 
grow out of it. 

The hours for labor are somewhat different from those in 
England, and strike a stranger rather oddly. Both mechan- 
ics and farmers go to work at six a.m., after a lunch, quit 
at nine o'clock for breakfast, resume work an hour later, and 
quit at two o'clock for dinner. At three o'clock they resume 
work, and stop at six o'clock. In harvest-time they gener- 
ally have a second lunch at noon. 

The Scotch have not, strictly speaking, a reputation for 
temperance. But they are really a temperate people. No- 



308 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

where else, not even in Maine, are there so many tem- 
perance hotels as exist in Scotland. I think I am safe in 
saying that one-third of the Edinburgh hotels are temperance. 
They abound in Glasgow, and are to be found in every Scotch 
town of any importance. The little city of Stirling has sev- 
eral. I do not stop at temperance hotels myself: they are 
too noisy. They live about as we have found the EngHsh. 
Roast meats, mutton-chops, and cauliflower have the lead. 
But they have a. soup, called Scotch broth, which takes the 
rag off : I mean, it excels any soup I have eaten. Then they 
are isolated in another dish, — the oatmeal-cake. But we 
won't talk of the dreadful subject. 

The Scotch have a reputation for being strictly religious, 
industrious, and persevering. It is only a people inhabiting 
a rugged country like this, who are industrious and persever- 
ing, that can keep their noses above water. It is not a culti- 
vated country like England, and it is but little like it in rural 
appearance. Stone walls are more common than hedges, and 
an absence of both is frequently conspicuous. The roads 
are simply turnpikes, — more indebted to travel than to the 
roadmaster for their surface, — and are so like American 
roads in their rough face and straggling footpaths as to be a 
welcome sight to the homesick Yankee. It has taken cen- 
turies of time and labor to subdue the ruggedness of the land, 
and to bring it to its present state of cultivation ; and the 
hardy Scots deserve great credit. 

The political history of Scotland has shown its people's 
indomitable courage ; and its religious record, their heroism. 
No people are more respected than these Scottish folk. A 
leading characteristic among them is cautiousness. They 
make better listeners than talkers, and there is a spirit of 
independence ingrafted in them that is strikingly observable. 
An English friend who was recently in Glasgow called at 
a shop to purchase a walking-stick. He saw one near the 
door that suited him, and, learning its price, concluded to 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 3O9 

take it. Naturally enough, he wanted to look at some 
others, to see if he might not be better suited ; but the 
dealer, an old man, did not offer to show him any more. 
Then he said, "Can't I look at some other sticks?" And 
the dealer said, " If the stick in your hand pleases you, why 
should you look at others? " That closed the interview. 

But the statement that the Scotch lower classes are not 
open to fees, and scorn to earn money in that way, is a bit- 
ter sell. 

When we were in Edinburgh, and out riding one day, my 
wife's hat blew off, and sailed down the street. The carriage 
was stopped ; and the driver was getting down to recover the 
article, when a boy was observed to pick it up. I put my 
hand in my pocket to reward him for his kindness ; but the 
moment he handed up the hat, and observed what I was 
doing, he left ; and although the driver, whose sympathies 
were aroused by my action, called lustily to him to return, 
he would not ; and we went on, the driver sinking into a 
moody silence. But it pleased me very much ; and several 
times I rubbed my hands in a satisfied manner, and each 
time repeated, " That's the spirit for you ! — that's the true 
Scotch spirit that you read of ! " I was doing this when pay- 
ing the driver ; and in the midst of it he observed, " Would 
you mind something for the driver, sir?" Then I stopped 
doing it, and I haven't felt well enough to do it again. I 
am not prepared to state that feeing is carried on here to 
the extent that it is in England ; but there is enough of it, 
in all conscience. And ,they do not look happier than the 
English receiver of fees. 

Scotland is well supphed with churches ; has an abun- 
dance of reading-rooms and libraries, and charities. Its peo- 
ple are better educated (thanks to John Knox) than any 
other — excepting, perhaps, the Prussians — of European 
nations : they are hospitable, polite, sharply intelligent, and 
possess a fund of humor that appears to be pretty evenly 
distributed among them. 



310 * ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

The Sunday observances are rather strict. Liquor-saloons 
are closed on Sunday ; and the hotels are not permitted to 
sell spirits, excepting to their guests. To constitute a traveller, 
a native in search of a drink must go the distance of eight 
miles from his place. He then becomes a traveller, and is 
entitled to his dram from the nearest public-house. There 
is a report that there have been cases when seven and a half 
miles have fetched the coveted beverage ; but I cannot 
beUeve it. All business, shaving, &c., is suspended on Sun- 
day. 

There is one feature of Scotch and English towns that is 
not pleasant to travellers who love cheerfulness, however 
gratifying it may be to clerks ; and that is the early closing 
movement. Here, before seven o'clock of an evening, the 
bright shops are closed, and the streets are apparent only by 
the street-lamps. On Saturday there is a half-holiday ; and 
all the shops but the grocers' put up their shutters at noon, 
and maintain a gloomy silence until evening. Scotch shop- 
keepers always speak of the weather when you go in to trade, 
and always speak of it with such vivacity that you are led 
to expect further communication. But they generally dry 
up at once, in despair, perhaps, of the weather doing it. 
What they say to you is, "This a dull day, sir?" A Scotch 
almanac is not an elaborate work, being simply, " About this 
time look out for rain." But we are over here to see history 
and ruins, and must move along. 

Culloden station is four miles, by the Highland Railway, 
from Inverness. We got down there to visit the battle-field 
which witnessed the final attempt of the house of Stuart to 
overcome the house of Hanover. 

We republicans cannot be expected to understand how 
a young refugee from France could command the influence 
and muscle of thousands of British in the overthow of their 
ruler. In our country we elect our rulers for a certain 
length of time ; and, at the end, the majority re-instate or 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. ■* 3II 

replace. Andrew Johnson would have a nice time raising an 
army to displace Mr. Grant. But Charles Edward, a prince 
of the deposed house of Stuart, attempted something equally 
improbable a hundred and thirty years ago. He came over 
to Scotland, raised an army and marched into England, re- 
treated back into Scotland before the Duke of Cumberland 
of the house of Hanover (then in possession of the throne), 
gathered an army of seven thousand men here at Culloden 
for a final stand against his cousin of Cumberland, and ex- 
pected, by " cleaning him out " here, to so far encourage his 
sympathizers throughout Great Britain as to rally sufficient 
numbers around his standard to restore it. And so the two 
forces met at Culloden ; and, after a desperate fight, the 
Highlanders who backed the prince were defeated by the 
Lowlanders who opposed him; and the young man, after 
sore wanderings and futile attempts at resuscitation, got back 
to his relative the King of France. He pursued a wrong 
course ; and, behold, how disastrous the result ! What he 
should have done w^s to take the money contributed by zeal- 
ous followers, sue the house of Hanover for ten thousand 
dollars' damages (thus get his name before the public), and 
then gone into the lecture-field at two hundred and fifty dol- 
lars per night. Or he might have bought a saloon in New 
York, got on the Board of Public Works, and died worth a 
miUion, and universally respected by everybody. 

All this country is immediate to the north coast of Scot- 
land ; and from the third century, when the religion of our 
Saviour was introduced into Scotland from Ireland, this part 
of the country has been busy. The stone circles abound all 
about here, but more numerously in the back mountains. 
They are simply whole or broken concentric circles of upright 
bowlders. They are supposed to be relics of the Druidical 
religion ; and, as I am not prepared to doubt the supposition, 
I discreetly keep silence when people show them to me. 

Right where we are now skimming along at the rate of 



312 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

thirty miles an hour the fishy-smelling Nonvegians toiled 
over the sands, and met the big-limbed and not particu- 
larly fine-flavored Scots and whipped them out, and stole 
whom they didn't kill, and destroyed what they couldn't lifi:. 
And here also the Danes came, and were beaten back by 
Macbeth, the chief of King Duncan's army, and an aspirant 
to his master's throne : so I have understood. The vessels 
of the Norwegians were shaped like a dragon, and frightened 
the people. After inventing the dragon, it is noticeable that 
man has not attempted to outdo the job. Everybody, upon 
seeing a dragon, frankly admits that it is the chmax of woe. 
So these boats were shaped like a dragon, with the grinning 
head as a prow cleaving the waters, and bringing death, 
agony, and garlic to this fair land. Each boat had a single 
sail, formed of the American national colors ; and tlie crew, 
working at their long oars, sang, " Three cheers for the red, 
white, and blue ! " "Who will care for mother now?" and 
other Nonvegian anthems of that dim and misty long-ago. 
One of the Norwegian chiefs met with a singular fate. He 
had killed a brave Scotchman called Buck-Tooth, — from 
the fact that one of his front-teeth protruded unpleasantly, — 
and cut off his head, as was allowed in those times, and fas- 
tened it into his girdle, and galloped away. He was going to 
have it mounted with silver, for a bosom-pin ; but, in the 
motion of the gallop, the buck-tooth wore into his thigh, and 
made a wound, from which he died. This opens the ques- 
tion, What sort of tobacco did the people of those days 
chew ? 

A few miles beyond Culloden is Forres, where I stopped 
for two hours. No one says much of Forres ; but it is a lit- 
tle place of considerable interest. Forres has a witch-stone 
(on which three of those miserable women were executed by 
people who showed in themselves that there was a peg lower 
in the scale of depravity than that on which ^vitchcraft hung), 
and a stone called Sweno's Stone, which is certainly worth 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 313 

going to see. This curious monument is of grayish granite, 
oblong in shape. It rises twenty feet above ground, and is 
said to be the same length beneath the earth. It is about 
two feet in width, and about half that in thickness at the 
base, and tapers to less than half that at the top, being wedge- 
shaped. The top is covered with sheet lead to protect it. 
On one side is carved a runic cross, formed of runic knots, 
and very finely done. Below the cross are four figures, 
two of them bending over some object. On the reverse side 
are innumerable figures, standing horizontally and perpen- 
dicularly, with an expression to their bodies as if they were 
feeling their way over thin ice, — a very common character- 
istic of all ancient sculptures. 

The stone stands in a wheat-field, surrounded by a stock- 
ade of rough timber, about ten feet from the road, and is 
approached by crawling through a hedge. Its origin no 
one knows. A bookseller in Forres, who contemplated issu- 
ing a guide to his village next summer, told me that he pre- 
sumed it was raised when the Danes filibustered here, and 
commemorates one of their battles, wherein three of their 
kings met their death. He knew nothing of Mr. Sweno. 
The figures are so indistinct, that no intelligible significance 
can be attached to them. I do not favor the Dane theory. 
The rude people they came to rob could neither have de- 
signed nor executed such a work ; and the Danes themselves 
were not here a sufiicient length of time to have performed 
it ; and, had they been, it is not at all likely the fiery and 
avenging Scots would have permitted it to remain any longer 
than was necessary to break it down. 

It is rarely that I go into an abstruse question like this ; 
but, when I do, a general feeling of satisfaction and content- 
ment follows. 

An English gentleman complimented me recently on the 
historical features of my letters. He told me that I was 
putting an entirely new face on matters. He said others may 



314 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

follow Macaulay, White, Motley, and all the rest ; but I am 
the historian for his money. This naturally gratified me. To 
tell the truth, I have not been satisfied in the last fifteen 
years with the way history is managed. 

These Britons won't know their history when I get through 
with it. 

It was at Forres that Shakspeare locates his Macbeth. I 
don't know what size Forres tould have been at that time 
(eight hundred years ago) ; but it now has three thousand 
population ; and, as it is still growing, there is no telling to 
what limits it will push in the next twenty-five or thirty cen- 
turies. 

The blasted heath where Macbeth met the three witches, 
— there was no daily press in those days, — and learned of 
his preferment at court, is still in this neighborhood, and is 
as scrawny and scraggy as ever. 

Near the station are the ruins of the castle where Macbeth 
and his fair wife entertained King Duncan, and wound up 
the entertainment by stabbing the old gentleman. It was a 
very fiUing feast for him. 

But two of the basement arches are standing, and the first 
floor is now covered by turf and grass formed there in the 
past several centuries by the winds of heaven. I went down 
into the vaults and fell over a box, and meditated on the 
tragic scene that was enacted there. 

I have subsequently ascertained that the ruins are of a 
building which a Forres town-officer, with more aspiration 
than means, started for his o\vn glory and occupation in the 
last century, and didn't get above the first floor, and that 
King Duncan was kflled in battle at Elgin. 

I have started for Elgin to learn the particulars. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 315 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 



ELGIN AND ITS SIGHTS. 



THE Romans are the only travellers who did not enjoy 
this country. They remained about Stirling and below 
there for years, but staid here no longer than was necessary 
to repack their luggage. This country must have been wild 
and rugged then, with a people clothed in skins, and colored 
with pigment. There were no hotels nor ruins from Aber- 
deen to the base of the mountains. History had woven no 
spell over the country. I don't blame them for not staying. 
But it is different now. There is not a square foot of 
this ground but has tasted blood, or witnessed intrigue : 
there are not two square feet, anyway, but are thus distin- 
guished. To go over this section of Scotland, observing 
every old castle and ruin and battle-scene, would be a labor 
of months. For the matter of ruins, Elgin will hold its own 
against anyplace in Scotland, excepting, perhaps, St. Andrew's. 
A curious place is Elgin. It is a village of eight thousand 
population ; but I never heard of it till I came to Scotland. 
But I don't suppose there is a soul in Scotland who has not 
heard of Duluth. Elgin has two railway-stations, one of 
them covered with iron and glass ; while pendent from the 
roof are delicate vines, with bunches of flowers that sweep 
within a foot of the passenger's head. It has two hotels, 
and about forty inns, which accommodate nothing but thirst, 
and appear to be full all the time. It has a High Street, — 



3l6 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW, 

long, narrow, and irregular, — quaint ancient buildings along 
its sides, and a venerable cross in its centre, with the closest, 
mustiest, and gloomiest closes outside of Edinburgh. From 
the dates on some of these tenements, they are from two to 
three hundred years old, and bid fair to stand three times 
that length of time. Like all the old buildings throughout 
Scotland, they are built of fence-wall stone, covered with a 
cement of concrete, and whitewashed. Many of the roofs 
are made of gray-stone flags, lapping like slates, but quarried 
before slates were known here. The red tile, so common in 
England, is but little used here comparatively. 

At one end of the High Street is a grassy knoll, with a lofty 
monument to a Duke of Gordon, and the broken walls of a 
castle that was in ruins several hundred years ago, and which 
are now but mere stone stubble. The stones are melting 
away, leaving the much harder mortar to continue the battle 
against the elements. Nobody knows how they made their 
mortar so outrageously hard in those days ; and nobody wants 
to, unless he is building for himself. There is but a portion 
of the hill devoted to the stumpy walls of the castle ; but it 
must have, at one time, covered the entire surface, as they 
did not go in much for croquet-lawns in those days, and 
generally planned where their apple-peelings and other swill 
could go down the hill out of smelling-distance when flung 
from a back- window. It is said of this castle, that once, when 
it was occupied, a pest in the shape of a ball of blue fire 
descended from heaven upon it, and infected all the inmates, 
and that the superstitious inhabitants of the village gathered 
together and covered the castle with earth, burying the occu- 
pants in a living tomb. It was done in one night. The only 
trouble with that story is its corpulency. 

Imagine, if you can, a couple hundred men, with shovels, 
at the base of a hill fifty feet high, covering a quarter of an 
acre of castle at the top with dirt. But the tradition does 
Rot say that they used shovels : perhaps they merely sat on the 
castle. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 31/ 

A short distance down the High Street is the old town- 
cross, from which proclamations were once made ; but the 
town-crier now occupies the square when delivering his dead- 
ly harangues. The cross is a shaft of granite, round, and 
worn smooth by the little Scotchmen who have cHmbed it in 
the past centuries. Near the top it is four-square, and on 
each face is a sun-dial ; above is a unicorn. Sun-dials are 
on nearly all the old buildings ; and although this sun-dial has 
been in use many, many generations, it keeps time as correct- 
ly as the Greenwich Observatory. I have not yet seen a sun- 
dial that was incorrect ; and yet we laugh at the ancients. 

At the foot of High Street are the ruins of Elgin Cathedral. 
It is safe to say, that, where one person visits Elgin Cathedral, 
twenty-five go to view Melrose Abbey ; and yet the cathe* 
dral, for extent and beauty, is the peer of the abbey. The 
building is nearly six hundred years old, and has had vicissi- 
tudes enough to make it an interesting monument. It was 
hardly completed when a young man named Stuart, a son 
of King Robert the Second, who had taken to the mountains, 
— just as high-spirited boys in these days run away and take to 
the canal, — and soon graduated into a very successful thief, 
was, for some deviltry of unusual magnitude, excommunicated 
by the bishop of the diocese. In revenge he came down from 
the mountains with his gang, sacked the sacred edifice, near- 
ly destroying it, and burned the bishop's house and a good 
part of the city. Where the cross now stands he got down 
on his bare knees, and begged pardon ; and it was granted, 
on condition that he would foot the expense of repairing 
the cathedral. A century or so later, " the lord of the isles," 
whoever that individual was, swooped down upon the church, 
and robbed it of its gold. and silver. Still later, it was the 
theatre of deeds of violence committed by two neighboring 
families, — the Innes and Dunbars, who were constantly in 
hot water with each other ; and so great was tlieir feud, that 
not even the sanctity of the cathedral afforded a protection. 



3l8 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

The Dunbars were surprised one night while worshipping 
there, and were put to death ; and, in retaliation, a party of 
the Innes met the same fate in front of the altar at the hands 
of the Dunbars. The fruits of this dreadful warfare are still 
seen in New England, where hosts of the people go winter- 
greening or clamming in preference to running the risk of 
losing their lives while quietly worshipping in church. 

The feuds of these two families give a very good idea of 
the untamed passions of those days, in that several tradesmen 
entered a protest against the draught on their time made by 
sitting on juries to settle the differences. The hardship was 
somewhat aggravated by the fact that they had no interest 
in the matters, and, as the petition dryly observes, "knaw 
na thing thairof mair nor thai that dwallis in Jherusalem." 
So our jury system of this day has age, if not sense, to sanc- 
tion it. 

Among its other rehcs of the past, 'Elgin has a charity 
called " Bide-house." It was endowed by somebody who died 
centuries ago. Over the arch is this text, in old English, — 

" Blessed is he that considereth the poor : the Lord will 
deliver him in time of trouble." 

MilHons can testify to the truth of this utterance. The 
house accommodates four men, who are tradesmen in indi- 
gent circumstances. When one dies, his wife, if he have one, 
ceases to reap further benefit from the institution ; and his 
place is filled by some other unfortunate. The only dis- 
charge is by death. The recipients of the charity are called 
" Bide-men ; " and each one has a share of the house, a bit of 
garden to cultivate, and fifty-two dollars and a half in money 
per annum for his support. His apartments are by himself, 
and his patch of ground is opposite his door: so he has 
really a nice little home all to himself and wife, and can 
live comfortably the balance of his days. 

Before England and Scotland perfected an amicable union, 
there used to be slight differences between them ; and every 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 319 

little while each party would go over into the other's country 
to see about it. However many or few went over to see 
about it, far less returned. The English one time lost thirty 
thousand of their number in one of these little calls. To 
shut off these excursions, the border-people erected square 
towers of stone ; and a number of them are still remaining. 
A similar tower, called "The Caxton," from the name of the 
family building it, stands within four miles of Elgin. It is 
about twenty feet square and forty feet high, and has three 
floors, besides a sort of cellar, where the good farmer on 
whose land it stands keeps his milk. The entrance to the 
first floor is about eight feet from the ground, and was once 
approached by a ladder, but, on these peaceful days, has a 
series of substantial stone steps. It is entirely fire-proof, 
there being no wood about it but that used in the door ; and 
this is backed by a strong lattice of iron. Its walls are of 
enormous thickness ; and its roof is of flagging, laid together 
like a floor. The walls are pierced for the defenders to fire 
from ; and the door is protected by two turrets leading off 
from the top floor, and so pierced that those occupying them 
could cover the entrance with their guns. It was an ingen- 
ious and successful contrivance by the Caxtons to protect 
themselves from their too sociable neighbors, who, like many 
Americans of the present day, were addicted to giving " sur- 
prise-parties." Not that I wish to be understood as repre- 
senting that they were of a similar nature to the modern 
affairs. Heaven forbid that I should slander the dead ! 

About three miles from Caxton Tower is a church of the 
Druids, — that mystical and brutal priesthood who flourished 
in Britain until the dawn of Christ's kingdom. They were a 
simple and unostentatious people in their edifices, if not in 
their rites. The churches where they gathered consisted 
simply of a circle formed by bowlders planted in the earth. 
These were the walls of their temples, and the heavens the 
roofs. It was a cheap roof, but disastrous to the interests 



320 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

of builders. The walls of the old Druid church near Ur- 
ghuart are perfect, although two thousand years, if not four 
thousand, have come and gone since they were erected. 
There are scores of bowlders about Danbury just like these. 
There are six of them ; but there were nine when the circle 
was complete. It was then about forty feet in diameter. It 
was a simple ruin, simply surrounded, being in a meadow 
near the road. You might pass them forty times without 
taking much notice of them, excepting remarking upon their 
number. It was a lonesome place for a church, and almost 
too lonesome for a ruin. There was not a house in sight, — 
merely a stretch of fields rising and falling as far as the eye 
could reach. What an altogether different aspect, when the 
Druids, with their flowing beards and robes, stood within 
this charmed circle, and plunged the knife into the human 
sacrifice, and incanted as the victim convulsed in the fatal 
grip of the last enemy ! 

The peaceful pursuit of agriculture was unknown. Dark 
forests spread their veil over hill and dale, untouched by the 
patentee of "purely vegetable extracts." 

This reminds me that the descendants of the Druids, the 
present British people, sell spinach by the pound, fish and 
fowls by the piece, and that the grocers, while cheerfully 
delivering your purchases to any part of the city, fimily but 
kindly decline to include eggs in the delivery. The customer 
must attend to the eggs himself, or go without them. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 32 1 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

THROWING THE CAEER. 

THERE was to be an exhibition by a district athletic 
society, in the httle village of Tomintoul, while I was 
in Elgin ; and, as the programme included Highland games, 
I determined to attend. Tomintoul is strictly a Highland 
village, but so obscure, that Scotch friends advised me not to 
go. They said it was fourteen miles from the nearest railway- 
station, and was altogether dilapidated. When I heard that, 
I became simply feverish for the trip. Two reporters went 
along. We reached a station called Ballindalloch, and 
there found a machine in waiting. When I say a machine, 
I do' not wish to be understood -as referring to a patent saw- 
mill, or any thing of that kind. The Scotch address as " a 
machine " what the English denominate " a trap," and what 
we would call " a carriage." The animal which propelled, 
and the elderly gentleman who instigated the animal, were 
both of about the same age, — seventy odd, — and had, un- 
doubtedly, experienced similar vicissitudes through the long 
course of their lives. 

The ride to Tomintoul was a most enjoyable one, even 
under these circumstances. The old gentleman was talka- 
tive and posted, and the few traditions and local incidents 
which slipped through his fingers could not have amounted 
to much. The road ran through Glen Levit for a greater 
part of the way, passing the famous distillery which takes its 



322 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

name from the district, by two castle-ruins and several tem- 
ples of the Druids. It skirted one of the ridges, and kept a 
pretty good level the entire distance, although the country 
was remarkably mountainous. We went by one burn (brook) 
where once a terrible battle was fought between two venom- 
ous clans ; and so deadly and disastrous was the fight, that 
the waters of the burn ran red with blood for three days. 
There can be no doubt of this, as the burn is still here. The 
old party became quite animated in relating the valorous feats 
of the Highlanders ; and, seeing the subject pleased him, I 
kindly dipped into some particulars myself, and fervidly 
reviewed the batdes of the clans of which I had either read 
or heard. 

The country we passed through partook of all the features 
of genuine Highland scenery. There were cultivated fields, 
slopes of pasture, running water, glens, hills of fir, mountains 
of heather, and levels of peat. 

When about half through our journey, we came upon an 
exclusively bleak section. The principal product appeared 
to be peat, of which there were immense beds. Most of 
the labor was performed by man's dearest earthly treasure, — 
woman. The ladies wheeled the peat from the beds to the 
drying-flats, and reared it into artistic piles. I hardly know* 
how the wheels of government and peat-barrows would re- 
volve if it were not for the fair sex, as some one calls them. 

Wild moors stretched away to the mountains on each side, 
and over them the wind whistled mournfully. Here and 
there was a squalid cottage, with its dingy walls, once white- 
washed, and its broken roof of thatch; Occasionally there 
was a collection of them, with a post-office in one, and one 
or two of the others containing boards, with the announce- 
ment in little black letters, " Licensed to sell tea and to- 
bacco." 

A more cheerless and unattractive district cannot be found 
in the Rocky Mountains. The only relief to it was the 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 323 

heather, whose purple blossom, now in full bloom, softened 
the lofty contour of the mountains, and veiled their rugged 
faces. 

Coming over the hill upon Tomintoul, we saw before us 
a line of stone houses, with more thatched than slate roofs. 
The buildings appeared to be pretty much of one pattern, 
and the most of them were rather squalid. Almost the 
entire village was built on the High Street, which was devoid 
of pavement, and showed numerous signs of neglect. 
Queen Victoria passed through here when on her Highland 
tour, and in her book spoke disparagingly of Tomintoul. 

The pubHc square, of some two acres, is divided by the 
High Street. In one of the divisions the games were held, 
and the observers had already assembled. They consisted, 
for the most part, of plain-looking country-people. The 
females were cheerfully decked in bright colors, selected and 
blended with rural taste. The masculines moved around 
uneasily in their holiday clothes, and smoked clay pipes. 
Of course there were exceptions ; but this was the appear- 
ance of the mass. I judge there were scarcely two hundred 
men, women, and children present, with a promising assort- 
ment of dogs. 

About a half-acre of ground was enclosed by a rope, and 
within this space the prizes were competed for. Around 
three sides of the square, both inside and outside of the rope, 
were grouped the observers, the greater part of them stand- 
ing. I had expected to see a large green enclosed by 
boards, with several hundred people, two or three refresh- 
ment-stands, a band of music, and a price of admission. 
But here it was, with a rope merely for appearance, and free 
to all, — a humble, unique gathering, which interested me by 
its novelty, and pleased me by the hearty good-nature of 
everybody. Tomintoul is a poverty-stricken section, and 
every thing was unpretentious and humble ; but that they 
enjoyed it heartily, unmindful of their rusty village, and mis- 



324 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

erable High Street, and squalid suburbs, there can be no 
doubt. 

For ages these Highland games have been in vogue. 
Generations ago, when clan organizations were maintained, 
the several families participating marshalled their clans to 
the music of the bagpipe ; and, with banners flying and every 
man in kilt, they gayly approached the rendezvous, forming 
a spectacle that must have been very exhilarating. But now 
they straggle together, like our people going to a fair. Few 
are in Highland costume, and the parade and pomp of for- 
mer days have disappeared with things of the past. 

About fifteen or twenty of those assembled to-day were in 
full tartan, coat and all, with the purse, with its tufts of hair, 
hanging at the front, and a dirk, sheathed in the stocking, 
on the right leg. 

The games commenced with the throwing of the stone, 
being a bowlder weighing some twenty pounds. They call 
it " putting the stone." There were six competitors, all from 
the neighborhood, and, like those competing through the day, 
the straitest kind of Highlander. A party named Fleming, 
powerfully as well as shapely built, won the first prize, throw- 
ing the bowlder nearly forty feet. He is a professional in 
the business, and makes a good bit of money in the course 
of a twelvemonth, my old gentleman informed me. 

Next was the throwing of the heavy hammer. There were 
nine competitors. The hammer consisted of an iron ball 
weighing twenty-two pounds, with a wooden handle about 
three feet in length. The competitor first braced himself 
with his back to the space, and then, carefully taking a proper 
grip of the handle, swung the hammer several times in a 
circle on a level with his head, and then flung it. It was a 
healthy exercise, without doubt, but not to the obsei-ver, 
who had no means of knowing how firmly that heavy ball 
was secured to the handle. Every time one swung it, I was 
sorely tempted to get behind the first ■ building ; but I kept 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 325 

to my post, and enjoyed it as well as I could with my hair 
inclining to stand endways. 

Fleming was again the victor, making a distance of eighty- 
six feet. 

The throwing of the light hammer followed, and again 
Fleming won. The hammer-business took up some two 
hours' time ; and, during the progress, the first piper made his 
appearance, and marched several times about the grounds, 
playing with all his soul and lungs. Pipe-music, as a Scotch 
friend observed, sounds bonny coming over a hill, if you are 
going over the next hill at the same time. 

He was a gallantly- dressed Highlander, and, to a totally 
deaf party, must have been a cheering spectacle. Shortly 
after, two other pipers came on the field. One of them was 
piper to Sir George Macpherson Grant, whose estate is at 
Ballindalloch. Nearly all the Highland noblemen keep one 
or two pipers on their estates. One piper succeeded the 
other in furnishing music ; and, during a lull in the heavy 
games, they each gave their best efforts, marching about in a 
square as they played, in competition for prizes. There are 
worse things than a bagpipe, except when it is being tuned. 
The tuning of a single bagpipe will imbitter the lives of 
three hundred people at once. 

The " throwing of the caber " was the point in the pro- 
gramme which interested me the most, because I did not 
know what a caber was. It followed the light hammer, and 
proved the most difficult to perform of all the feats. The 
caber used on this occasion was the trunk of a young tree 
twenty feet in length, with a butt eight inches, and a top 
four inches in diameter. I don't know the weight of it ; but 
you have the dimensions, and can figure up the pounds on 
the basis of a very sappy trunk. The competitor took his 
position, and two men ended the caber in front of him. He 
raised it so that one hand could grasp it at the butt, and 
then, balancing it, ran a few steps, and threw it so that the 



326 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

upper end should strike the ground, and the log turn over. 
There appeared to be no difficulty, in this trial, for the com- 
petitors to make the upper end of the log strike the turf; but 
it would not go over, and, in most instances, scarcely reached 
a perpendicular. At Fleming's third trial he made a com- 
plete turn of the caber, and won the first prize. A foot was 
then taken from the butt, and the other competitors wrestled 
again with the leviathan. 

One young man, who had been looking on the wine when 
it was red, was nearly successful in heaving the caber across 
my spine. I would not permit him to apologize for the 
failure. I told him I was not one of the exacting kind. 

The high leap revealed considerable skill and other things. 
In preparing for the leap, the competitors commenced 
to shed their clothes. A man with red hair, and red face, 
and red whiskers, was dressed in the Royal Stuart plaid, 
of course, from his shoe to and including his Glengarry 
bonnet. He looked like a bonfire. I saw him strip. He 
unwound his plaid, and gave it to a friend; he took off 
another sheet of flame in the shape of his coat (this left 
him in his undershirt, the kilt or skirt which hung from his 
hips, and the stockings) ; then he took hold of the fastening 
of the kilt, and commenced to undo it. The perspiration 
started out on my forehead. What if, in the haste of coming 
to the gathering, he had forgotten his drawers ? Slowly the 
kilt dropped off, and there he stood. He had remembered 
the drawers. There they were, in all about a half-yard of un- 
bleached muslin, no more than covering his thighs. Thence 
to his stocking-tops he was bare and unshaven. And they 
were not bald-headed legs, by any means. He was so 
pinched and contracted, that I expected every moment the 
keen wind which was sweeping across the square would carry 
him away. He once took hold of the drawers as if to undo 
them, but did not. He must have seen the frown on my 
face. Several others stripped in the same way. I was in 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 32/ 

hopes that Fleming would jump as he was. His body was 
covered with a gray sack-coat ; but his kilt was short, and 
of green plaid. In bending over, or in the movement of 
the skirt by the wind, not a vestige of drawers could be seen ; 
and I thought with horror of his leaping over the rod. He 
took off his sack, and then undid the kilt. I turned my back. 
When I had plucked up the necessary courage to look around, 
he stood there, clothed in an undershirt, a little fold of cloth 
about his thighs (just as professional gymnasts wear), and his 
stockings. For the sake of decency, he had left his dirk in 
the right stocking. The handle screened a part of his naked- 
ness. 

The dancing, which closed the games, was on a small plat- 
form, laid on the turf. Highland reels led off. There were 
nine competitors engaged at once to the tornado harmony 
of the pipes. Then there was a Highland fling, in which 
seven separately participated; and these were succeeded 
by the huilachan^ or reel o' Tulloch, danced by four High- 
landers with great spirit. In all this dancing there was 
genuine poetry of motion, without the hilarious rattle of 
American and Irish jigs. The dancers either rested one 
hand over their hips, crooked the other above their head, 
or kept the arms down, and snapped the fingers. One 
of the number gave forth a whoop. In this dancing there 
was a semblance to an Indian festivity. Two thousand years 
ago these people went almost naked, and painted their 
bodies, and lived by hunting, and were organized into tribes. 
The years progressed, and refining influences came in : 
they put on more clothes, rubbed off the paint, and became 
merged into predatory clans, with a chief to rule. To-day 
the bare knees, the shadow of clanship, and the whoop in 
the dance, are about all that is left of the Indian features 
of two thousand years ago. I would like to respectfully but 
firmly suggest that the Scotch Indians of two thousand years 
ago left the Highlands of this country to take to the High- 



328 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

lands of America, and that they are the authors of the pres- 
ent Modocs and peace commissions in America. I think 
they are the chaps who wiped out the mound-builders. 

Tlie gayety of the dancing was most curiously framed. 
Here were the plaids waving in the air, bare legs ambling and 
revolving, the pipes whistling ; overhead was a leaden sky ; 
along the horizon were the bald ridges of mountains ; about 
us were the gloomy-looking stone buildings, some of them 
roofless, and all of them deserted. 

The sword-dance wound up the performance. There were 
several competitors. Two swords were laid on the platform, 
with blades crossed. Each dancer was expected to execute 
some ten minutes of motions about and among the blades 
without touching them. As the dance progressed, the strains 
of the bagpipes increased in speed, and faster and faster the 
bold Highlanders' legs flew among the glistening blades. It 
was an exciting spectacle. 

And, radically opposite to that which followed, a prize was 
offered for the best-dressed Highlander — at his oivn ex- 
pense. There were five competitors. Our fiery friend was . 
among the number. He blazed forth like a fresh comet. 
There was a squatty-looking chap in a peculiar blending of 
colors not common in their plaids. Then there was another, 
a fine-looking gentleman, clothed throughout in gray plaid, 
looking less picturesque than the bright colors, and some- 
what out of place among the rest, but tastefully dressed 
throughout. They stood in a row, looking straight ahead in 
a business-like manner, without a smile upon their faces. 
They stood there some ten minutes, while the judges passed 
around them, examining them as if they were strange cattle 
suspected of disease. 

The comet got the prize. He was the best dressed — at 
his 0W71 expense. That is, it was merely a test of cost, not 
of taste. 

Then there was a foot-race from the foot of the rugged 
High Street to the square. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 329 

After that the competitors and observers dropped their 
identity, and mingled together. Every room in the low, 
squatty Gordon Arms, and in the low, squatty Richmond 
Arms, was filled, as were also the stairways, with people. 
The young maids were kept busy running up and down the 
stairs from the bar to every nook and crook in the two build- 
ings capable of holding two people and two glasses. Men 
and women mingled ; and the clinking of glasses, tread of 
feet on the bare floors, and loud voices of those in debate, 
with snatches of songs from the more convivial, made up a 
scene that defies the power of my pen. All the poverty and 
deprivations and bleakness of Highland life in the Tomin- 
toul region was for the time put far from memory. The 
people were getting ready for the ball in the evening, and 
every soul in the village capable of being out of bed was in 
or about those two inns. > 

The Grants were in this room, sitting on the bed, lined 
against the walls, occupying the chairs, and communing at 
the top of their respective voices ; in another were the Gor- 
dons, similarly engaged ; in a third, the Stewarts ; and so on 
all over the house. 

The Scotch drink less than the English ; but there is far 
more drunkenness here than in England. And, when they 
are full, Demosthenes nor George Francis Train could begin 
to talk with them, and a boiler-factory is not one-sixth as 
noisy. 

Neither one of the caravansaries had any cigars. Tomin- 
toulers couldn't afford the luxury of cigars. This will give 
you a comprehensive glimpse of the financial prosperity of 
this Highland settlement. 

As the shades of evening descended, we mounted our 
machine to return to Ballindalloch for the night. Enthu- 
siastic friends followed us out doors, and swore they would 
never desert us, and forthwith proceeded to put their pur- 
pose into execution by clambering up on the machine. Two 



330 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

of them got across my legs, and suddenly fell into a most 
violent altercation on the somewhat unexpected subject of 
carrots ; while a third, wishing to engage my attention to a 
few remarks he was about to make on the subject of infant- 
baptism, pounded one of my feet with a knife-handle until 
it seemed I would go mad. 

The old party who drove us, and who, from frequent con- 
gratulations on the auspicious events of the day, was now in 
a state to resent almost any thing, suddenly whipped up his 
steed ; and the movement made a thorough sweep of both 
the carrots and the baptism advocates. 

We reached Ballindalloch in good time, having a delight- 
ful drive through the quiet twilight which covered mountain 
and moor, and, after a sound sleep in the little solitary inn, 
felt like a giant refreshed for a return to my cathedral 
town. 

Speaking of Elgin reminds me of a reply our driver made 
to a question about the fishing in a burn we were passing. 

" It's nae great amoont of fish ye'll find there," he said. 
" Fish be as scarce hereaboots as soop (soap) in a cathe- 
dral toon (town)." 

Volumes could hardly give a more comprehensive idea 
of one feature of a cathedral town. 



I 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 33 1 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

A JUMPING-OFF LUXURY. 

THERE is nothing particularly exciting in the country 
between Elgin and Aberdeen ; but Aberdeen furnishes 
quite a contrast to Elgin. It has a population of some 
ninety thousand people, and is mostly built of granite : if 
I am not disastrously mistaken, it is called the "Granite 
City." Its name is familiar to every American who takes 
an interest in graveyards. I remember the first stone from 
its workshops which was erected in the Danbury cemetery. 
It was two years before it had a fellow, and in that time 
was visited frequently by everybody, as its polished shaft 
attracted attention from all directions in the grounds. We 
call it Aberdeen marble. I was always interested in it 
from its almost supernatural resemblance to a Bologna 
sausage. 

Aberdeen is a sort of new town and old town combined. 
The new town has Union Street for its principal avenue ; 
and a very fine avenue it is. I did not learn its length ; but 
it is as long as one cares to look at when living at a hotel, 
and is of good breadth." At the head of Union Street is the 
square ; and evenings I used to amuse myself by going to 
the square, and looking through the broad, straight avenue, 
marked by its two lines of glittering gas-lights. They shot 
down it like two trails of flame, and presented a spectacle I 
never saw equalled in street-scenery. 



332 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW, 

For its size, Aberdeen is probably the largest city in the 
world. From ten o'clock in the morning until that hour in 
the evening, Union Street presented the appearance of some 
one having jumped out of a window in a fit of insanity. 
Several times in the first three days of my visit I worked my 
way into the crowd in the hope of seeing a shattered piece 
of humanity. I need not dwell on the disappointment I 
experienced : it is the most acute the world affords. 

Union Street is a modern street ; and its suburbs are decid- 
edly American, with their front lawns, broad sidewalks, and 
ample shade-trees. The city end of the avenue is a square, 
or rather triangle, where the markets are held. In the 
evening the square was occupied by fruit-stands and auc- 
tion-stalls, and loungers and musicians. Saturday is the 
chief market-day, and on the Saturday I was in Aberdeen 
the square presented a most singular appearance. No 
market-day I have yet seen can compare with it. 

Two-thirds of the space was covered with booths, and the 
collection consisted almost entirely of second-hand clothing. 
The monument to the Duke of Gordon was *the centre of 
this traffic, and the iron fence which surrounded it was 
hidden from sight by patched breeches, Joseph coats, and 
red-flannel undershirts ; while the duke, from his elevation, 
looked down on the motley mass with an expression of the 
liveliest astonishment. The booths consisted simply of four 
poles, and a flat canvas roof artistically fringed with articles 
of cast-off wear. The people who tended them looked as 
fully second-hand as their goods, and even their smiles 
appeared to be about half worn out. The articles were in all 
stages of progress toward ruin, many of them being so 
unhealthy as to appear to be beyond all hope of recovery. 
But they found buyers. 

There were also picture- dealers, and cutlery-merchants, 
and old-junk-sellers. The chief articles in the stock of the 
last-named were rusty nails and crippled hinges. I thought 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 333 

of getting a couple of each for birthday-presents, but was 
afraid I would not be able to smuggle them across the Atlan- 
tic, the custom-house officers are so dreadfully sharp. 

Second-hand clocks which looked as if they had been 
second- handed before, and second-hand cradles, were also 
objects of interest. I saw three purchasers of cradles : they 
were females, and about sixty years old. Each one took 
up her purchase, and made off with it. I saw no young 
woman buy a cradle. That struck me as being so extraordi- 
nary, that I spoke to a policeman about it. All he said was 
to wink ; which appeared to be so sensible, that I winked 
too ; and there the matter rests. 

Between the booths and the arrival of the tramway-cars 
the customers divided their attention. The city terminus of 
the tramway was in the square. It had been runnin'g about 
five days, and it was the first street-car performance the 
Aberdeen people had seen. I never saw a people so thor- 
oughly engrossed in a subject as they were in this tramway. 
The arrival of a car was a signal for the gathering together 
of everybody in easy access of the spot. They looked upon 
its painted exterior and upholstered seats with hungering 
eyes, and beheld with hushed breath the changing of the 
horses ; and when the gong sounded, and the -driver gath- 
ered up the reins for the start, it seemed as if the excited 
populace would just sink into the earth in an excess of 
delirious amazement. 

The boys appeared to be the only ones to retain their 
presence of mind. Those of them who could not raise 
money enough to secure a ride invested what they did have 
in toy torpedoes, which they insinuated on the rails ; and, 
when the car passed over them, a sharp explosion followed, 
causing nervous persons to lose the topic of their attention 
and to leap out of their seats, and forcing the driver into 
the use of dreadful language. There was no use in trying 
to stop the boys. The police found themselves helpless to 



334 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

remedy the trouble ; and the drivers did not dare leave their 
cars, for fear they would move off without them. But all 
new operations must expect to contend with difficulties. 

They were prophesying the line would not pay ; but I did 
not succeed in detecting the grounds for the prediction. 

It was paying well enough then. Every car was full, 
besides having a large surplus in the shape of about forty 
boys running after or along with it. Any one who could get 
a twopence had a ride at once, and those who had more 
money rode as often as possible. One man had his meals 
brought to him in the car, so as not to lose his seat. He 
had spent all his loose change in tickets, and, on the day of 
my arrival, had mortgaged his house to the directors of the 
company, and was going to take it out in rides. It isn't 
every place that has a public-spirited citizen like that. 

Next to riding was the exquisite pleasure of jumping on 
and off the cars when in motion. 

I don't know why it is, but there is born in every human 
breast a burning desire to jump on or off a moving object. 
The railway-cars in our country offer every facility for the 
indulgence of the desire ; but here on the railways there is no 
such opportunity, and street-cars are the only means people 
have for enjoying this godlike luxury. We can imagine, 
but not describe, the state of the human breast in Aberdeen 
before the advent of the tramway. That it was almost rent 
with the jumping-ofif emotion there can be no doubt. 

But it was now finding free and untrammelled expression. 
No one pretended to stop the car when he wanted to get off. 
He would scorn to be thought so lacking in manliness. He 
just jumped down himself, and after striking on the back of 
his head, and splitting his coat through the back, rubbed 
himself, and limped off. 

About every ten minutes, somebody came bounding across 
the pavement in front of the hotel from one of those cars. 
When I left Aberdeen there was scarcely a whole man in the 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 335 

place, and a court-plaster factory in the neighborhood was 
running day and night. 

I hesitated some few minutes before making this state- 
ment, it sounded so much like exaggeration; but truth is 
mighty, and will prevail ; and, if people do not believe it 
now, they will finally grow into it. 



336 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



n 



CHAPTER XL. 

ASTONISHING FACTS ABOUT WAGES. 

ABERDEEN is largely interested in fisheries, — a fact 
that is impressed upon the visitor very soon after his 
arrival. But, to see the fisheries in their full extent, he must 
go down to the water. In the season, the fish-neighborhood 
is a busy and loud-smelling place. I take great interest in 
such matters. We always are the most concerned about that 
which we understand the least. Besides, I like to see fish 
caught in quantities, — a pleasure I was denied when I was a 
fisherman ; and, again, I am interested in knowing how enor- 
mous quantities of fish are handled without smothering the 
neighbors. When I was a boy I was passionately fond of 
fishing, and have frequently sat for hours at a time on a damp 
bank waiting for a bite. About sundown I could be seen 
approaching home with a very depressed and sick-looking 
fish on the end of two yards of string. 

I rarely had more than one fish ; but I managed to become 
so imbued with the odor of that single fish as to give the 
impression that I had caught a ton of them. My parents 
could never look upon this phenomenon as being other than 
a malicious deception on my part ; . and a little brother, with 
a better nose than heart, used to declare, that, if he had to 
sleep with me, he would run away, and be a corsair. 

A good corsair gets about ten dollars a day and his board, 
I understand. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 33/ 

It was not a pleasant undertaking, working my way down 
to the fish-district of Aberdeen. The street along the river 
was broken in pavement, narrow in walk, and pretty thickly 
populated with a tarry-flavored people. On getting across 
the stream to a neck of land where the fishermen were locat- 
ed, I found the mud about three inches deep, and the smell 
about four feet square. Various sheds and* pens covered the 
place, with here and there an opening for the barrels in 
which the fish were packed. I found a man in the midst of 
several hundred barrels, busily engaged in branding them. 
Although he had many irons in the fire, yet he found time to 
converse with me. 

The fish which Aberdeen chiefly deals in are herrings. 
The present season's catch has been a good one ; and the 
brander of the barrels was, in consequence, disposed to be 
friendly and sociable. I had the impression that the boat- 
men were doing business on their own account ; but it appears 
that several men own and equip the boats, and hire the 
brawny, tarry individuals to play on the credulity of the her- 
ring. When brought face to face with the fresh herring, I 
was very much surprised to find that he differs astonishingly 
from the boxed herring. I can't say that civilization has 
done much for herrings or mackerel or codfish. It has pre- 
served their good qualities at the sacrifice of their personal 
appearance. Anybody who has looked a salt mackerel square 
in the eye will bear me out in this view. 

The brander of barrels had about him some dozen or so 
of women, who were adding brine to the barrels. The in- 
spector had just been there examining, and put his mark on 
the barrels of fish. He had found every barrel to be in good 
condition, and this also tended to Hft up the spirits of my 
friend. He had thirty boats of his own ; and the most of them 
had got in the day before, and unloaded their cargoes. He 
took me to a large pen, where twenty women were opening 
the fish^ taking out their mainsprings, and preparing them for 



338 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

the brine. The fish were brought to them in large, square 
baskets, and, after being attended to, were thrown into a box. 
Each woman stood before a board, and held in her right 
hand a knife : with her left hand she picked up a herring, 
inserted the point of the knife into its stomach, drew out 
something which she flung aside, and threw the fish into the 
box before her. I hardly want to say that she opened and 
disposed of a fish in less than a second, and to say that there 
was a fish in the air all the while would be a gross injustice 
to her acquirements. There was an unbroken procession of 
them, leading from the right hand to the box. There was no 
slip of the knife, no picking up a fish wrong end first, no in- 
terruption at all. I was charmed beyond expression, and 
stood rooted to the spot, drinking in the wonderful beauty 
of the scene, and holding my nose. The fish I used to carry 
home on the end of two yards of string was generally about 
two inches and a half long. The reflection that weighed 
heavily upon me all the way home was the fact that that fish 
had to be cleaned before I could dispose of it, and that I had 
to clean it. This finally inspired me with a dislike to my 
prey, and led me to wonder why fish were provided with 
insides and scales. On reaching home, and disposing of a 
cold supper, I hunted up a clean board, got the largest knife 
to be found in the house, and began the task in the kitchen 
by the light of a kerosene-lamp. First I went to work at the 
scales, holding on to the tail until that gave out, and then 
catching hold of the body until the tension caused the fish to 
burst open and spill over me. Sometimes the fish would 
slip into the sink, but more frequently on to the floor. At 
the expiration of a quarter of an hour I had removed some 
fifteen scales, ten of which were up my sleeve, and the others 
on my nose, being transferred from my hand to that feature 
while engaged in rubbing my eye, which invariably itches on 
such an occasion. About this time my mother would make 
her appearance, and just in time to see the kerosene -lamp 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 339 

narrowly escape going over on the floor. With the help of a 
pair of tongs I was induced to transfer my operations to the 
back-yard, and continue them in the starlight. Here I 
would struggle with that contrary and exasperating fish for a 
full hour, at the end of which time I had screwed off its 
head and wrenched away its tail, and made its body look 
something hke Lazarus' shirt. The next morning, an hour 
would be lost in prevailing upon the hired girl to smuggle 
my fish into the frying-pan ; and it eventually came to the 
table an inch long, and looking so insignificant, that my 
father quite frequently took it down by accident, and didn't 
find out the error until the spare scales got in his windpipe, 
and threatened to strangle him. 

No wonder I was charmed with the speed with which these 
women dressed these herrings ; although it made me sad to 
feel that the herrings were not alive, and consequently could 
not realize and appreciate the artistic way in which they were 
being handled. 

They received twenty-five cents for cleaning and packing 
away a cran (barrel) of these fish. Each cran contains 
from eight hundred to twelve hundred fish, according to their 
size ; and, when I tell you that each of those women earned 
five dollars a day, you can form an idea of how swiftly they 
worked. 

If I could be sure of cleaning as many fish as I could eat, 
and do nothing else, I should feel satisfied. 

Have you made a note of these wages ? I have occasion- 
ally spoken to these people of our hat-makers, and told them 
that there are men in Danbury who earned ten dollars a day, 
and women who earned four dollars a day. The last has 
surprised them more than the first. An Aberdeen merchant 
(a draper) thought women who earned such wages must be 
of great value to his business. But here are women in his 
own town who earn more money. But his trade has not 
profited in proportion. The fish-cleaners of Aberdeen dress 



340 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

in the coarse garments of their fellow-laborers on farms, and 
appear to have no soul above their employment, and chaffing 
the great hulks of fellows who go down to the sea in ships. 

If four dollars a day earned by an American woman is so 
startling a statement that these old-country people niust ask 
for time to credit it, what are we to think of the Aberdeen 
fish-cleaner's wages? 

The five dollars which they make in a day is in gold ; and, 
making due allowance for the difference in the cost of living 
in the two countries, it would be fully equal to double that 
money in the States. If any one knows of a branch of 
business in America which pays the female operatives ten 
dollars a day, I hope he will not neglect to speak of it. 

Speaking of the difference between the two countries in 
cost of living, I cannot forbear just here to call attention to 
a peculiar feature. The cheapness of living in this country 
depends entirely on your nationality. One day last summer 
I was talking with an English shoemaker on the subject of 
prices. He showed me his goods, and expatiated to great 
length on their superiority to American goods, and their 
wonderful cheapness as compared with trans- Atlantic prices. 
When I told him that I paid eight dollars for the making of 
the shoes I wore, he appeared very much distressed. He 
did not think they were worth more than three dollars. I 
pondered over this matter for a week, and then gave him 
my measure for a pair. He finished them, and sent in the 
bill, — five dollars and a half, — which would go just as far 
with. him as ten dollars would with a piratical American shoe- 
maker. But I didn't mind the price much, — although it 
nearly knocked me over, — because I knew they would wear 
me several years. Two months later I was obliged to have 
them soled. The shoes made by the swindling American 
went six months without repairs. 

An American lady who had shocked some English ladies 
by the extraordinary statement that she had paid ten dollars 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. , 34I 

for the making of a plain silk dress at home was subse- 
quently able to revive them somewhat by paying an English 
seamstress six dollars in gold for manufacturing an overskirt. 

These and a few other incidents which have come under 
my notice lead me to the solemn conclusion that it is a glo- 
rious thing to be an American, if you don't look too much 
like an American when abroad. 

We bade good-by to the Highland region at Aberdeen. 
And I take this opportunity to mention a growing evil. I 
have commented upon the absence of forests and the abun- 
dance of heather covering the mountain and hill ranges. A 
good part of this land, apparently going to waste, was once 
cultivated. It is now a cover for game, such as rabbits, 
hares, partridges, and the like ; and that portion of it not 
owned by noblemen fond of sporting is owned by those 
gentry who are not, and they throw it open to the public at 
so much per head the season. Over this hunt a class who 
have no land of their own, and another class, also game- 
landless, but who do not hunt for the pleasure of it, but for its 
profit. They are objects of dislike to the residents. They 
shoot every thing they come to and can hit, and sell it. 
Hunting has thus become an indiscriminate slaughter as a 
sacrifice to Mammon ; and the land-owners find the business 
so profitable, that they devote more and more land to the 
purpose every year, and the farms are becoming less and 
less in arrearage. 

You would hardly believe it, but the enmity which once 
raged so strongly between the Highland and Lowland peo- 
ple is still cherished by many of the former. There were 
people about sequestered Tomintoul, where I witnessed the 
games, who have a strong feeling against Lowland people. 
When a Lowlander is about they hide their oatmeal-cake, 
and are unhappy. 

Dundee is somewhat larger than Aberdeen, but is not so 
handsome. But it has many fine public buildings. Its 



342 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW, 

principal manufacture is jute, great quantities of which are 
shipped to America : in fact, Dundee is largely indebted to 
the States for its prosperity. It will be remembered, that 
during the terrible war in our country, when the horizon was 
darkened with clouds of distress, the American ladies came 
nobly forward, and wore jute almost entirely as back hair. 

There is an opportunity here to say something about 
Scotch newspapers, as Dundee presents a phenomenon in 
this business. "The Dundee Advertiser" is a daily with a 
weekly edition. It also publishes two weekly papers of a 
literary turn. One of these has a circulation of sixty thou- 
sand, and the other of a hundred and twenty-five thousand 
copies. Frankness compels me to say that the literary paper 
published by " The Advertiser," which has the circulation of 
a hundred and twenty-five thousand ("The People's Jour- 
nal"), would not have a circulation of five thousand in our 
country. It is simply a four-page paper, and has only one 
or two serials, with no illustrations ; but it has got a hold on 
the people of Scotland, and its enormous circulation is 
steadily increasing. Dundee has a hundred and ten thou- 
sand population, and has only two daily papers. Aberdeen 
has a population of nearly a hundred thousand, and has 
only one daily paper. Places in Scotland of from fifteen 
to twenty thousand inhabitants have no daily papers. 

The Scotch papers look more like American papers than 
any others in the British kingdom. They have display adver- 
tisements, and will not turn their backs on head-lines. Speak- 
ing of our late war and Scotch newspapers reminds me of an 
incident. When our war broke out, there was a flourishing 
daily paper in Edinburgh. Its editor was a strong anti- 
slavery man, and took strong grounds in favor of the Union. 
He used his paper to strengthen the North, and did valiant 
battle for its cause ; but they would not sustain him. All the 
other Edinburgh papers predicted the success of the South, 
and were backed up by hberal patronage. Our friend's 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 343 

paper lost ground every day. Subscribers deserted him, 
and advertisers withdrew their favors. Finally it became 
apparent that the North would win, and the other Edinburgh 
papers trimmed their sails accordingly. " Now," thought 
• our friend, " the people will see and applaud my foresight." 
But they did not. A man who predicts contrary to the 
masses should take care that his prognostications are not 
verified. The masses don't like to be mistaken : it is a sort 
of reflection upon their well-known wisdom. Our friend 
was obliged to give up his business : it was closed under the 
hammer, and he is now engaged in another business. 

I saw an Englishman the other day who is now a clerk. 
He had a good lumber-business when the war of the Rebel- 
lion broke out ; but he took the side of the North, and it 
was his ruin. 

This is a solemn warning to us all. 



344 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

A SAMPLE OF THE GOOD OLD TIMES. 

WE reached Stirling on a Saturday evening. It had 
been the market-day : and although the business 
which had called the masses together was transacted, still 
the people lingered ; and the narrow main street was crowded 
from the centre of the pavement to the buildings, with Irere 
and there an inebriated but not ill-natured soldier to en- 
liven the scene. The markets and fruit-stalls, and bars and 
cigar-shops, were in a blaze of light. This was Baker Street. 
It ran up the hill to the castle. Its buildings were narrow, 
three and four stories high ; and some of them were in need 
of repairs tvvo hundred years ago. 

In the matter of historical interest I will back Stirling 
against any place of its size in the United Kingdom. It 
was once the court of Scotland, and once witnessed the con- 
summation of the most awful revenge on record. 

Four hundred and sixty odd years ago a king of Scotland 
had two sons, and both of the boys had an uncle. In those 
degenerate times, nothing corrupted a man so much as being 
an uncle. But that was many years ago, and now an uncle 
is considered to be about as respectable as anybody. As 
a matter of course, this uncle aspired to his brother's throne ; 
and to do this, without committing himself, he murdered the 
oldest son, and caused the second to be captured and im- 
prisoned by the King of England. Scotland was not then 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. , 345 

strong enough to make England give up its prey, and no 
attempt was made to recover the young prince. The old 
gentleman died of a broken heart. The uncle took posses- 
sion of the government. He was the Duke of Albany, and 
a healthy mess he made of affairs during his regency. The 
more powerful noblemen oppressed and robbed the middle 
classes ; and the duke, who dared not oppose them, for fear 
of losing his regency, grinned and submitted. He couldn't 
curb them : he wasn't their uncle. The King of England 
gave the Scotch prince a good education, and plenty of 
pocket-money ; and the young man studied hard. He was 
a fine young fellow ; but he would write poetry. He allowed 
his hair to grow down his back, omitted to clean his nails, 
and stole all the candles he could lay his hands on to write 
poetry by. Every issue of " The Literary Repository " con- 
tained from twelve to twenty-seven verses from his prolific 
pen. In the few years he was at Windsor he furnished for 
publication no less than two hundred " Odes to Spring," with 
a large assortment of ''Lines to J." This letter stood for 
Jane, the name of a lady of the Rufort family, — a very 
beautiful girl, with whom he sensibly fell in love. There is 
no record of the amount of his other work. One of his best 
pieces was " Christ's Kirk on the Green." He was also the 
author of "Willie, we have missed You," "Beautiful Snow," 
and " Over the Hill to the Poor-House." 

He married Jane. This event had such a marked influ- 
ence upon his poetry, that, as a matter of self-defence, the 
publishers dof the several literary weeklies met at Exeter Hall, 
and drew up a petition to the king to send the young man 
back to Scotland. His uncle was dead, and was succeeded 
by his cousin. The cousin was displaced by the English ; and 
young James, with his English bride, assumed the reins of 
government. He had been with the English nineteen years ; 
and the bill they brought in for his board, lodging, lights, and 
clothing, was two million dollars. So, after all, living was 
not much cheaper in England then than it is now. 



34^ ^ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

He found Scotland in the hands of the oppressive and 
murderous barons, and the Highlands swarming with brig- 
ands of various types. Business was unsettled, and farms 
were lying waste. The young man, having seen in some 
American newspaper (where it occasionally appears to this 
day) the statement that the " pen is mightier than the sword," 
carefully veiled his intentions from his noblemen. He issued 
a proclamation, calling a parliament at Perth (a nice sand- 
wich can be bought for a twopence at the railway restaurant 
in Perth), in which the powerful rascals assembled. He let 
them vent their oratory, and appropriate the government 
stationery for a whole week ; then he marched a body of 
armed men upon them, and made twenty-six of the most 
powerful and unprincipled of them his prisoners. 

Among the prisoners was the Duke of Albany, son of the 
crafty uncle, his two sons, and his father-in-law, the Earl of 
Lennox. Against this family the king had a long and bitter 
account to settle ; and he settled it. Near Castle Hill, and 
within ten minutes' walk of my hotel, is a crag called Head- 
ing Hill. There he setded the account, and took a receipt 
in full from the blood of the four men. Some people think 
he had no right to kill these men ; but they seem to forget 
that he was a poet, and a poet's license covers about every 
thing. 

Well, he put down disorder, and hung or beheaded the 
disorderly ; and he very soon had a country worth living in. 
Business revived, fields blossomed, and tourists returned ; but 
the family of Albany nursed their wrongs. 

Thirteen years later he came to Perth again, he and his 
family, to spend Christmas. The festivities were over. He 
stood before a fire in his dressing-gown and slippers, com- 
menting, with his wife and her lady-friends, on the enjoy- 
ment of the day and evening. Suddenly a body of armed 
men made a descent on the place. He fled into a vault to 
save himself from what he well knew to expect ; but he was 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 34/ 

cornered, and in a few minutes stabbed almost beyond rec- 
ognition. 

Two noblemen (brothers) named Hall, and a nobleman 
named Graham, were the assassins. Within two months they 
were apprehended; and the wife of the murdered king, 
transformed into a demon by her loss, took her revenge. 
The Halls were taken to Edinburgh, stripped naked, tied to 
crosses which were set up in carts, and driven through the 
streets to the place of execution. The executioner stood 
behind them, and picked off bits of their flesh with pincers, 
until the blood ran in unbroken rivulets down their legs. At 
the scaffold their heads were hewed off with a dull axe. 

Wasn't that awful ? But, brutal as it was, it was a prome- 
nade-concert alongside of the agony dealt out to Graham, 
the man who first plunged his sword into the body of James. 
He was tortured here in this quaint, quiet city. Here are 
two boys, at this very moment, fighting for the possession of 
the stump of a cigar in the middle of the very street where 
he endured the great suffering. There are gay shouts and 
light laughter floating down this avenue every day ; but it 
must have seemed, to the people who cowered before that 
spectacle four hundred years ago, that never again would 
the voice of pleasure sound between its walls. 

They put him in a cart, and fastened him to a post, with 
the fatal sword driven through his right hand. He was 
entirely naked. The cart moved up this street ; and, during 
the frightful march, two hangmen, with red-hot pincers, 
griped his flesh from the crown of his head to the sole of his 
feet, until he presented a gory mass of pulp, with his blood 
covering the cart, and dripping through the crevices to the 
pavement for the dogs to lap up. With the circuit once 
made, the false arm was hacked off; and again the proces- 
sion resumed its march. All that human flesh could be 
made to suffer he had undergone. But he was to receive 
another blow, and this upon his heart. At the scaffold, his 
only son was disembowelled alive before his eyes. 



348 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

That is the httle revenge I called your attention to at the 
opening of this letter. 

Those were the good'old times, you know, before modern 
pohtics had corrupted and prostituted people. Everybody 
had what they earned then ; and people were not carried 
away by vanity, and taken into captivity by frivolities. 

Stirling Castle, like its co-famous Edinburgh fellow, is at 
the point of a crag. The castle is fortified, like that at 
Edinburgh ; has its moat, portcullis, &c. ; and consists of a 
number of buildings of various styles of architecture. 

James the First dwelt here ; and they show the window 
out of which his son, James the Second, threw the body of 
one of the Douglases whom he slew when engaged in a 
heated discussion. They were a wonderfully sociable people 
in those days. 

Castle Rock in Stirling has been made more of in the way 
of comfort than Castle Rock in Edinburgh. Its front-side 
has been terraced into beautiful walks amply shaded, and it 
is a favorite resort with the town-people on pleasant Sundays. 
It also differs from its Edinburgh fellow in that it is compara- 
tively isolated, rising out of a plain, and conspicuous for 
miles around. From its buildings can be obtained one of 
the finest landscapes I ever saw. The River Forth flows 
through the plain, and its links shimmer up in the rays of the 
sun like the curling of an enormous snake. For miles toward 
Edinburgh the view is unobstructed. Meadows and grain- 
fields, turnpikes, forests, villages, and castles, dot the plain, 
with here and there moving shadows from the fleecy clouds 
above. In point of location, Stirling is to be envied. That 
it is also appreciated is evident from the swarm of visitors 
which comes down upon it every season. 

One of those double churches so common in Scotland is 
to be found in Stirling, close to the castle. It is called the 
High Church, and is about four hundred years old. When I 
went up to its door, I found the old lady who takes care of 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 349 

it bowing out two American ladies. They wore jockeys on 
their middle-aged heads, and large noses on their hard-drawn 
faces. They were probably crusaders. 

I shall never forget the smile the old lady fetched me 
when she saw me bearing down upon her. It gushed over 
her face, and fairly lighted up her hair. But it made me sick. 
I was afraid I had not sufficient money about me to satisfy 
her. 

She showed me over the churches, and then took me to a 
quaint old building across the way, where were stored relics 
of the dim past. The building is a hospital, which was 
endowed by an old buffer named Cowane for the welfare 
of decayed merchants : not when they are too much de- 
cayed, however. The coat of arms is the figure 4. The 
guide-books say that represents that Stirling was one of the 
four royal burghs ; but the old lady communicated to me in 
a whisper that it referred to the fact that Mr. Cowane never 
sold any thing at a less profit than a fourpence. Although 
of only fifteen thousand population, Stirling has four of these 
benevolences. One of them is named after a party named 
Spittal, who distinguished himself several centuries ago in 
the manufacture of breeches. A tablet commemorating his 
benevolence closes in this concise manner : " Forget not, 
reader, that the scissors of this man do more honor to 
human nature than the swords of conquerors." I am sorry, 
now, that I left my scissors at home. 

In addition to the old graveyard is a fine cemetery, with 
walks, grottos, lookout, and a drinking-fountain. It has the 
tombs of several martyrs. The most conspicuous monument, 
and really a beautiful piece of sculpture, is to the " Virgin 
Martyrs." The inscription reads, " Margaret, virgin martyr 
of the ocean-wave, with her like-minded sister Agnes." 

In May, 1685, Margaret Wilson, aged eighteen years, 
Agnes her sister, aged fourteen years (daughters of a small 
farmer), and Margaret MacLachlan, an old woman, were tied 



350 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

to Stakes at low water in the Bay of Wigton, with a view 
to drowning them for holding to the opinions of the Cove- 
nanters. 

Owing to the extreme youthfulness of Agnes, and one 
hundred pounds which her agonized father scraped together, 
the hearts of the saints who were engaged in the murder 
were touched, and she was released. The two Margarets 
were drowned, crying out to a pitying Jesus to have mercy 
upon them. 

Those good old times are gone by now. There is no 
assembling in caves and damp forests to serve God. Peace, 
security, and prosperity cover the land. Everybody worships 
his Maker according to the dictates of his own conscience ; 
and every town has an abundance of schools, and one or two 
cannon from Sebastopol. 

On the wall of the old church is a list of the rates for 
interment ; and I herewith reproduce a few of them : — 

For a hearse with four horses (including grave-digging), $7.50 
For a hearse with two horses (including grave-digging), 4.50 
On shoulders (including grave-digging) .... 6.52 

On spokes (under twelve years) 1.25 

On spokes (above) 2.00 

Child in arms I.25 

Ushers, each 25 

Bag for bone 25 

In Stirling are the traces of the walls of what is called 
Cambuskenneth Abbey. There are the tower and the lines of 
the foundations. It must have been an extensive building, 
or rather collection of buildings. The abbey was built some 
seven hundred years ago. If I remember correctly, there 
are three floors to the tower. Each one of them contains 
relics of mouldings, cornices, pedestals, &c., gathered from 
the ruins, and preserved, because it doesn't cost any thing 
to do it. A woman with about twenty-seven children, living 
in a long, low cottage near by, has charge of the place. She 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 35 I 

had just finished showing a party of Americans over the 
tower, and, having to attend to household duties, left me in 
charge of one of the boys. 

The ground-floor of the tower was very well filled with 
these bits of ornamental stonework ; and, besides these, there 
was an upturned dry-goods-box, on which were arranged 
several bottles of soda-water, lemonade, and ginger-beer. 
The boy shouldered the entire responsibility of these wares, 
lightening and cheering the hours of toil by knocking a bit 
of stone with a hammer. 

On the third floor was a canoe, — a canoe about fifteen 
feet long. It was cut from a solid log. A few months ago 
it was taken from the river-bottom near the abbey, and now 
looked very much decayed and crestfallen. It is safe to say 
that that canoe was built before the age of iron. It was 
constructed with stone tools. Coals of fire were put on the 
green log, and, when they expired, they were swept off, and 
the charred portion was chipped out with stone-chisels ; and 
then fresh coals were added, and the same operation gone 
over, until the hollow was made, and the outside took a con- 
formable shape. No one can tell the days that were devoted 
to the completion of this task. 

Stirling has still another claim on the attention of tourists. 
It was a gathering-place for the Romans when they were 
here sixteen hundred years ago, and relics of their occupa- 
tion still remain. Near the field of Bannockburn is a remnant 
of one of their roads, so it is said ; but Sam Weller's coveted 
eye-glasses would fail to discover it. However, there are the 
complete outlines of one of their camps at Ardoch, a few 
miles above Stirling. I went over there one afternoon and 
took a good look at it. The outer embankments, with exte- 
rior ditches, are singularly perfect, considering the centuries 
of weather they have endured. Banks, ditches, and plazas 
are covered with grass, and furnish pasturage to some fifty 
cows. 



352 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

I learned that a clergyman some two miles off took con- 
siderable interest in these matters, and I footed it over to his 
house to get the particulars of the encampment. When I 
knocked at the door, a sour-looking woman made her ap- 
pearance, holding the door : so it would have been utterly 
impossible for me to have entered, unless I had been shot out 
of a columbiad. 

"Is the rector at home?" I inquired with a hopeful 
smile. 

"Yes," short, sharp, and decisive, as if I were direcdy 
responsible for his being in. 

" Can I see him? " I asked, with the same smile cut down 
fully one-half. 

"He is engaged." 

" I have been visiting the Roman encampment ; and, 
learning that he was in possession of information regarding 
it, I came over to have a few minutes' conversation with him." 

This was a frank and noble exposition of my errand, and 
deserved some encouragement. But she nevgr said a word : 
she merely moved the door six inches nearer to. I felt the 
smile pining away. 

" Will he be disengaged soon? " I gasped. 

"No." 

I turned to go, and the door slammed shut. 

The Scotch call this independence ; but I have turned 
ray back on encampments of the Roman pattern. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 353 



CHAPTER XLII. 

THE TERRORS OF A JAUNTING-CAR. 

A STEAMER from Greenock in Scotland conveyed me 
to Belfast, where I first struck Ireland. Going over 
there showed up the inconvenience of the baggage-system 
here. When I got to the station in Glasgow, the porter 
asked my destination. He then put a Belfast label on the 
trunk, and shipped it by first train to Greenock ; but I was 
not going until a later (express) train. When I came to 
start, I could not find my trunk. I had my ticket and a 
couple of sandwiches, but no trunk. I never made time go 
so far as I did the next five minutes ; but the only comfort I 
could secure was, that the trunk had probably gone on an 
earlier train, and was now lying in the station at Greenock, 
a temptation to some dishonest man. I hurried down to 
Greenock as soon as the train would permit, and, after a 
search, heard of a strange and unclaimed trunk lying on the 
steamer's pier. That v/as my trunk, and I got it. 

We reached Belfast at daylight the next morning. 

We got into a 'bus, and rolled away to the hotel. It was 
too early for business, and we passed but several drays and 
one cart. The drays set low down between the wheels, and 
the cart was drawn by a bald-headed donkey. There were 
three of the famous jaunting-cars at the pier ; but of them 
anon. After breakfast I took a stroll. It was about half- 
past seven; but the streets were quiet. Wherever I met 



354 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

a dray, I found it setting down between the wheels in a 
very despondent sort of fashion ; and every cart was drawn 
by a bald-headed donkey. Belfast is about eight hours' sail 
from Greenock, and several boats run between the two places. 
In such a case you would imagine that the two places might 
amalgamate their peculiar characteristics. But it is not so. 
Belfast is just as different from Greenock as though they 
were twenty thousand miles apart. The drays are different ; 
the horses are different, being smaller. 

Greenock has hacks, and Belfast deals mostly in jaunting- 
cars. 

But Belfast is a wonderfully busy place. It is the head 
centre of linen manufacture, and thousands of its people are 
employed in its factories. All about it are evidences of thrift ; 
and in the outskirts are pretty drives, fine villas, and an indus- 
trious and well-to-do farming-community. The agriculture 
of Belfast consists, however, of grazing, as there are few 
roots and little grain raised. Belfast consumes an abundance 
of milk. In fact, all through Ireland there is a proneness to 
run to grass. It requires less capital than other farming, and, 
for that reason, is the general choice. 

It doesn't seem at all probable ; but these people, who go 
to make up Great Britain, even vary in their table. The 
English beheve in stale, solid bread ; the Scotch hang their 
hopes on shortcake ; and the Irish are simply content with 
light, white, fresh bread. This is at the hotels in the several 
countries. At the breakfast in Belfast I was genuinely 
shocked to see a plate of steaming potatoes coming on to 
the table in their jackets. They were bursting open ; and 
their floury contents were flaking off, and rolling outside 
their brown coats. From that day forth, in Ireland, we found 
potatoes cooked in their jackets, — the only human way of 
boiling the dehcious bivalves. 

Belfast is not only a prosperous city, but is going to be a 
handsome city. Its villas are numerous, are architecturally 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 355 

handsome, and are surrounded by tasteful grounds. It has 
several fine churches, the spire to the Congregational church 
being the most graceful and ornamental work of the kind in 
the kingdom. Both the Methodists and Presbyterians have 
enormous colleges, built of bright-red brick, with imposing 
fronts and ample grounds. In the promotion of education, 
the development of industry, and the conservatism of pleas- 
ure, Belfast is an enviable city. 

It can be said of Belfast, what cannot be claimed for any 
other city in Ireland, except its neighbor Londonderry, // 
is groiving. 

Here are the changes in the past thirty years of places 
with not less than fifteen thousand population in 1841 : — 



Belfast 
Cork . 
Dublin 
Galway 
Kilkenny . 
Limerick 
Londonderry 
Drogheda . 
Waterford . 



1841. 


1851. 


1861. 


1871. 


76,441 


100,945 


121,602 


174,394 


82,748 


87,758 


80,121 


78,642 


. . . 


. . . 


254,808 


246,326 


17,638 


24,192 


16,967 


13,184 


I9>337 
49,205 






12,710 
39,353 


53,782 


44,476 



15,196 25,242 

16,324 13,510 

23,506 23,349 



Londonderry has increased two-thirds in the past thirty 
years ; and in the same time Belfast has more than doubled 
its population, with a young city as a surplus. Both places 
are in the north of Ireland. 

I took considerable notice of the jaunting-cars. I found 
them on every street, on the corners, and in front of the 
hotels ; I also saw them in motion, going by at a lively pace, 
and tearing around the corners with the greatest ease. The 
more I looked at them, the more anxious I became to get 
on one. I am not content to stand off and admire an ob- 
ject : I must get up to it, and go to fooling around it. 

A jaunting-car sets well up on two wheels. It has a seat 



356 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

at each side, operated by hinges, so as to drop down for use, 
or close up v/hen not needed, Hke the folding-steps to a stage- 
coach. Both seats drop over the wheels. This is an excel- 
lent idea, as in the case of a colHsion with another team, or 
running too close to a post, the wheel of the vehicle is pro- 
tected from injury, and only the passenger's legs are broken. 

Each car accommodates four passengers, sitting back to 
back ; and the platform between their backs is used for any 
little luggage they may have. At the front the driver has a 
seat for himself when full ; but, on other occasions, he sits on 
one of the side-seats. 

I loitered about one of these vehicles for a half-hour, 
and then, plucking up sufficient courage, got on board for a 
ride. The driver asked me where I wanted to go ; but I had 
no choice. In fact, the seat tipped down so far when I got 
on it, and I appeared to be in such imminent danger of slid- 
ing off on my face, that it did not seem right, in the pres- 
ence of the danger, to be dictatorial : so he went where he 
wanted to. We flew through street after street, and I never 
before was so shaken up. We dashed by teams in such 
close proximity to them, that I felt my breath leaving me, 
and went around corners with such swiftness as to cause 
my knees to involuntarily fly up to my shoulders. 

Pretty soon we got into the country, and he began to 
converse about the objects we passed. But I am tired of 
scenery, I have seen so much of it ; and so, while he 
talked, I dug my toes into the foot-rest, pulled my hat over 
my eyes and ears to keep it on my head, clinched my teeth 
together, and clung to the seat with all the desperation of a 
drowning man clutching a plank. I appeared to be the 
most seriously affected in the pit of my stomach. 

He seemed to be pretty well posted about the country, and 
the circumstances of the people whose places we passed. I 
enjoyed his conversation very much, and felt every moment 
that I was being improved mentally, even if I were incur- 
ring irretrievable injury physically. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 35/ 

When we got back to the hotel, and I had got down and 
pried my jaws apart, I made my first remark. I said, " Here 
is your money, you infernal scoundrel ! " 

Then I sent out and bought a truss, and put it on ; and in 
a few days I could get around quite comfortably with the 
help of a cane. 

The handsomest grocery I ever saw, or ever expect to see, 
is in Belfast. I have never mentioned it, but it is a fact, that 
these oppressed and down-trodden British people do have 
handsome groceries. The finer ones are called Italian ware- 
houses, from the fact that they deal in macaroni, fruits, &c., 
from that sunny clime. 

They do not sell flour, or salt meats, or fish, or vegetables. 
Their stores are high, have plate-glass fronts, and are very 
tastefully dressed. The grocery in Belfast is owned by a 
Quaker named Foster Green. It has a grand front on two 
streets. The goods are arranged with the best effect. The 
ornamental wood-work is of black walnut traced with gold. 
The floor would answer for a ball-room. Innumerable gas- 
jets flood the place with light, and gorgeous mirrors double 
the brilliancy. 

And he is a Quaker. Just think of it ! 

Sixty clerks are employed in this establishment, mostly 
young men, and neatly dressed. You could shake hands 
with any one of them, and not smell for two hours after like 
a mackerel. He boards and lodges all of them. Their 
dining-room through the day becomes their sitting-room in 
the evening. And he not only gets the work out of them 
for his money, but he also keeps a careful eye on their per- 
sonal interests. Belfast young men who incline to a mer- 
cantile life have a proper anxiety to get in his employ. 

People go from Belfast to visit the Giant's Causeway. It is 
on the north coast, and about eight miles from the nearest 
railway-station, which is Port Rush ; and Port Rush is some 
sixty miles from Belfast. The railway runs through a fine 



358 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

grazing- country. The farmhouses are not lofty structures, and 
hardly compare with those in England ; but they are gen- 
erally neat. A peculiarity of the scenery is enormous gate- 
posts. They are built of mason-work, are from two to three 
feet in diameter, have a conical top, and are whitewashed. 
When there is a break in the hedge or stone wall for a gate- 
way, two of the posts appear. We could see men at work 
digging potatoes or peat, and also women in the fields. 
Farm -laborers in Ireland get from tenpence to one shilling 
a day, and their meat and rent. In the busy time of harvest 
they are paid higher wages. A large number of farm-laborers 
go over to England every harvest, as they can get so much 
better wages there as to pay for the trip. They run over 
from Dublin on the steamer. They occupy the forward-deck ; 
and*ieach one carries a bundle done up in a handkerchief, 
and carried by a stick over the shoulder. An English friend 
asked me, on one of these occasions, if I ever wondered what 
were the contents of those bundles. He said, that, in years 
of observation, he had not detected one of the bundles 
differing so much as the sixteenth of an inch in size from 
its fellows ; and he had never seen one of them opened. 
The harvesters have plenty of whiskey with them, which they 
first drink ; then they dance and whoop ; and, after that, 
they lie down on the deck, and press their hands across 
their stomachs, and — and gape. It is a very rough sea 
between Dublin and Holyhead. 

The country from Belfast, until we draw near to Port Rush, 
is an almost unbroken mass of verdure, and is pleasantly 
diversified with hill, valley, and plain. I had heard Ireland 
denominated "the gem of the sea," and I began to think it 
was not an exaggeration. 

But we will not anticipate. 

The next morning I got a team, and rode to the Giant's 
Causeway. The road skirted the coast for a greater part of 
the way, giving us a grand view of the sea, and a peep at the 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 359 

grotesque and wonderful formations made in the solid rock by 
the dash of the surf. On a bold headland the driver pointed 
out a series of crumbling walls as the ruins of Dunluce Castle. 
No sane man in this age would think of making his residence 
on that cold and exposed and dreary spot, where, whenever 
any thing rolled out of the window, it would be irretrieva- 
bly lost, unless he very much despised cats. But the Dun- 
luces Kved in that good old time when the highest aspiration 
of people was to make cold mutton of their neighbors. Had 
the man who established pistol-pockets in breeches lived 
at that period, he could have bought up any congressional 
district in America. 

Just beyond the castle we verged off from the coast, and 
pretty soon struck into a straggling village. There was 
nothing particular about this place, except that in front of 
nearly every door was a column block of darkish stone, in 
octagonal, hexagonal, and other agonal shapes. The driver 
mentioned that they came from the Giant's Causeway. 

We left the village, and ascended a road with a high bank, 
with fields on one side, and a high wall with a forest on the 
other. Trees united their branches over our heads, making 
a refreshing shade. The driver spoke of the owner of the 
property which the stone wall enclosed. He had an income 
of three hundred thousand dollars a year, and only one child 
to leave it to. He had a deer-park, and acres of heather full 
of rabbits (of which we could see an abundance), and beau- 
tiful groves, and fair fields ; but he was not satisfied, and 
preferred staying in London for four-fifths of his time, hang- 
ing around the Alhambra, and Spiers and Pond's, I suppose, 
although the driver did not say so. 

When part way up the avenue, and I was about to call 
attention to the quiet beauty of the scene, a man with one 
leg suddenly appeared at the side of the carriage, and said, — 

^' Please, sir, help a poor man who has lost his limbs, and 
can't find work to earn his bread." 



360 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

Then he said, — 

" Please, sir, help a poor man who has lost his limbs, and 
can't find work to earn his bread." 

And further observed, — 

" Please, sir, help a poor man who has lost his limbs, and 
can't find work to earn his bread." 

We didn't give him any money; but we looked at him 
with tender sympathy. We had no sooner got rid of him 
than four boys appeared, two on each side of the carriage. 
Each had a package of views i*i his hand, and guile in his 
eye. They all said, — 

" Please buy twenty-five views of the Causeway for one 
shilling. Only one shilling, sir. None better, sir. Only one 
shilling, sir. Twenty-five for a shilling, sir. All of the 
Causeway, sir." 

" That will do now," said Major A., one of our party. 
" I will take some of those pictures : that is what I came 
for. I don't care to see the Causeway : I only came to get 
the pictures. Just tell me now, are those views lithogrims? " 

" Yes, sir ! " shouted the boys in chorus. 

" Ah, now, that is too bad ! " said the major with considera- 
ble feeling. " I wanted angloprismatics. I shall never buy 
a lithogrim as long as I have my reason. — Go on, driver." 

And the carriage rolled on, leaving the four boys staring 
distrustfully at each other. 

I shall not attempt to give a description of the Giant's 
Causeway. Both you and I have seen it pictured in our ge- 
ographies when we were children, and have read everybody's 
sensations and views of it, from Jones to Jenkins. 

The Causeway itself consists, briefly speaking, of column 
blocks of dusky stone. They slope away into the sea like a 
bank of rock. They vary in diameter from five to fifteen 
inches, and vary fully as much in sides, although the greater 
number are either five, six, or seven sided. But, whatever 
the number of sides each piece may contain, they are all 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 361 

joined together with a nicety of joint that no cabinet-maker 
can hope to surpass. The surface is uneven, and, after a rain, 
rather difficult to traverse, unless a man is a giant, and used 
to it. In the Causeway the columns are, of course, perpen- 
dicular ; but in the banks they are both perpendicular and 
horizontal. At one place they are stacked in the air, like 
chimneys ; at another they stand in the steep sides of the cliff, 
like the reeds to an organ. Thus we have the Giant's Cause- 
way, the Giant's Chimneys, the Giant's Organ, &c. The col- 
umns which form the Causeway are in sections, varying in 
le- ^th, and fitted together by convex and concave surfaces. 
O.x the outskirts these sections are easily dislodged, which 
accounts for the pieces in front of the houses at Bushmills. 

The visitor is aware, before he reaches the Causeway and 
its adjuncts, that they consist of basaltic rock, and that 
science has decided that they were formed by fusion under 
heat, and cracked, in cooling, into the singularly regular 
shapes we see. (I sometimes think that scientific men were 
formed by fusion under heat, and have subsequently cooled.) 
When you get there, you find that there are people about you 
who have lived in the neighborhood all their days, and who 
are as confident as that they live that giants really built this 
Causeway from Ireland to Scotland. A singular formation 
is visible on the Island of Staffa, on the Scotch coasts, where 
it slopes into the sea toward the Irish side. How far either 
point extends under the water, and whether they really meet, 
and form a continuous pathway between the two countries, 
under the sea, no one knows. No one, as far as I can learn, 
has cared to investigate ; although, with the improved diving 
apparatus now in vogue, it could be easily ascertained. 

Tradition varies as to the cause which led to the building 
of this footway ; but it unites in attributing it to the enterprise 
of giants. One explanation is to the effect that it was built 
by a company (limited?) of Irish giantry, that a famous 
Scotch giant might come over and prove that he was as good 



362 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

a man as he claimed to be. Of course he was whipped, as 
all the courage and skill was then, as now, strictly confined 
to Ireland. Another solution is in the shape of a famous 
Irish giant faUing in love with the daughter of a Scotch levi- 
athan, through an advertisement which she inserted in " The 
Waverley Magazine ; " and this roadway was built to bring her 
over to the Emerald Isle. Her husband thought she was 
motherless ; but, on discovering that she was not, he caused 
the rocky bed to sink into the sea. This last seems so sensi- 
ble and human-like, that it has become a favorite with me ; 
and, while I should hesitate to throw any disrespect upon 
science, still I must hold to this tradition. 

And now to explain how the major and I saw the sights. 
As the road ascended the cliffs, which form the background 
to the sea, at this point we saw a hotel at the left, and a half- 
dozen men standing at the entrance to the hotel-grounds, 
who, the driver intimated, were guides. 

The sight made me shiver. I have encountered so many 
of these dreadful people, that I have come to have an .uncon- 
trollable dislike of them. It is immaterial how estabhshed is 
their fee, or if they are not to be feed at all : they are simply 
leeches, who expect two dollars for ten cents' worth of infor- 
mation. Every lineament of their features, every wrinkle in 
their clothes, every hair in their heads, is gasping for money. 
Travellers are their legitimate prey ; and, while they would not 
take a cent from a neighbor because of the law, both con- 
science and court acquit them of wrong impulses in depre- 
dations on unprotected strangers who are so unfortunate as 
to be natives of a free and glorious repubhc. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 363 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

DOING THE CAUSEWAY, AND McDOOLEY. 

ABEI^FAST friend warned me against these guides, and 
assured me that I could see as much, and to better ad- 
vantage, without them ; and so I determined to eschew their 
society. But when one of them bustled up to the carriage, 
and fastened his cold gray eye gravely and seriously upon 
my countenance, I felt such a sensation of humiliation and 
reproach, that it seemed as if I could never wipe out with 
an age of tears the wrong I had done him. He was a 
small man, with large hands and feet ; and the backs of his 
hands and his face were mottled with brown spots. His 
nose turned up so sharp as to be uncomfortable to look at ; 
and his hair was cut straight around his head. Solomon in 
his prime was a decided idiot alongside of this man. 

But the major was not affected as I was. Years of sight- 
seeing and connection with these people had given him a 
heart of lignumvitae, and a countenance which no combina- 
tion of circumstances could apparently move. Nature had 
designed him for a traveller, and she could risk her reputa- 
tion on him at any time. 

The guide came up to the carriage with a volume in his 
hand. 

" Hello, De Aubrey ! " shouted the major with cordiality. 
" I am glad to see you, and looking so well too ! " And then, 
not noticing the look of surprise on the man's face, but glan- 



364 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

cing down at his book, " At it again, I see. I can tell you, 
my boy, study is a good thing ; but too much of it is good 
for nothing. I can see how you are wearing away under it. 
Now, I dare say you are forty feet in the most abstruse math- 
ematics this very moment." 

The guide, who had been staring from the major to me in 
unconcealed perplexity, managed to gasp, — 

" You are under a mistake, sir. I am the guide to the 
Causeway." 

"What's that?" said the major, putting up his eye-glass, 
and staring hard at the guide. " Aren't you a De Aubrey of 
the De Aubreys at Wexford? " ^ 

" No, sir. My name is McDooley, an' I'm a guide here. 
-This book " — 

" Exactly ! " said the major, restoring his glass in some 
perplexity. " But you look so much like the De Aubreys ! — 
the same bold profile and towering frame ; only your occiput 
is different. Your occiput is more like — like the Montmo- 
rencys', I think." And the major dropped into a profound 
study over the fatal mistake of the occiput ; while the owner 
thereof stood a moment, trying to catch my eye, and, fail- 
ing, tendered the book to the major, and began, — 

" I would like to call your attention, sir, to the recom- 
mendations in this book, — all from people I have had the 
honor of showing over the wonders of the coast." 

The major took the book, turned on his eye-glass again, 
and, commencing on the first page, was in a moment lost in 
a perusal of its exciting contents. For full ten minutes he 
continued submerged in the volume, reading page after page 
with burning interest, while the guide stood on the ground 
and fidgeted about, and the driver turned around on the box, 
and stared at the unconscious reader with all his might. 

At the end of the ten minutes Mr. McDooley could stand 
it no longer. 

" Would you, sir, allow me to show you a few of the lead- 
ing recommends? " he finally inquired. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 365 

" No, thank you," drawled the major : " I will come to 
them, I dare say, if I keep on." 

" I know, sir," persisted the guide : " but the tide is com- 
ing in, sir; and, if you want to see the rocks to the best 
advantage, you will have to hurry, sir." 

Upon this the major returned the book, and signified his 
willingness to go ahead, on condition that the volume should 
be loaned him again. He said he didn't favor light fictions ; 
but he was forced to confess that he had got deeply inter- 
ested in Mr. McFugal's work, and was anxious to learn how 
it would turn out. 

At this Mr. McDooley scratched his head, and said, " Yes, 
sir ; " and then stared at the driver, as if he thought that 
worthy had purposely brought a most incomprehensible fish 
into his net. 

The carriage drew up at a long, low-browed, white-washed 
building, where Mr. McDooley invited us to alight, and see 
the woman who kept the boats. 

I may as well mention here, that it is customary for for- 
eigners to take a boat, and view the Causeway and the vari- 
ous formations from the water. But I noticed that the Irish 
themselves, visitors to the place, do all their sight-seeing on 
land. The two caves can be entered only from the water ; 
but, beyond being holes in the rocks, they are not remark- 
able. I could have seen all I did, and with much more com- 
fort, from the land. You might cut this out, and pin it in 
your hat. 

The mistress who occupied the house, and owned the boats, 
was a tall, heavy, big-jointed matron. She wore a quilted 
skirt with no dress, and was bare-headed, — a costume com- 
mon in this section among the lower classes. 

She had a room at one end of her house for a display of 
photographs, and spar, and bog-oak ornaments ; and another 
room at the other end for the protection of a pony and sev- 
eral hens. There was no fence about the yard, which was 



366 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

littered with debris, and ragged boys, and pipe-smoking men. 
Mr. McDooley brought her out, and left us to engage the 
boat. We had to go a few steps to the boat, and, after see- 
ing the caves and other things, were to be left on the Cause- 
way, about a mile distant, and could return to the house by 
a car which she would despatch for us. She said the boat 
would be eight shillings (two dollars) . 

And then we started. Some forty men and boys trooped 
along with us, either just a little ahead or a little behind us. 
It made me nervous. I whispered to the major, " We shall 
have to fee all these people." And he whispered back en- 
couragingly, " It will be much cheaper to shoot them." Then 
aloud to the guide, — 

" What the dense, Mr. McFoodle, has got into the popu- 
lace? Do they think we are a torchlight procession? " 

" McDooley, sir, is my name," explained the guide. " The 
boys are just going to the break of the hill to see the boat 
off, sir." 

The hotel and the good woman's house are about the only 
buildings at the Causeway. One would think, considering 
the enormous number of visitors, that a village would spring 
up there, with paved streets, and stores burning two dollars' 
worth of gas every night. But there is no system, no organi- 
zation, about the place. The Irish are famous for a number 
of things, but not for successful organization. The knoll 
we went over was covered with grass, and down it, to the 
very little cove where the boats were, it was lumpy earth and 
grass. There was no path down it, no artificial aids for de- 
scending it ; and yet thousands of people, old and young, men 
and women, the strong and the weak, had descended it. 
Two hundred dollars would have made a very decent path 
down it. Did you ever hear of such shiftlessness ? We 
wormed our way down slowly and painfully, shpping, sliding, 
and straining ourselves, and covering our boots and clothes 
with mud. At the foot we had to leap from bowlder to 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 36/ 

bowlder, or climb over the large ones, to reach the boat. 
Four men were manning it ; and it took the four of them to 
keep it still while we sprang from the rocks into it. Nature 
has not been improved upon nor interfered with since she 
took the job in hand. There was not the slightest vestige of 
a pier. I am quite sure you never heard of such shiftlessness 
as that. 

After being settled in the boat with the guide and the four 
rowers, we pushed out through an opening where the huge 
swells of the sea sought to capsize us, turned sharp to 
the left, and followed the coast in a direction opposite to 
the Causeway. Ten minutes of rowing brought us to the 
first cave, whose dark abyss we stared into, and then moved 
away to the other. The next and the largest cave permitted 
the boat passing in, and to some distance from the mouth ; 
but as the breakers, which were dashing against its mouth, 
were about seven hundred feet high, I concluded not to run 
the risk. The rowers had, without doubt, large families 
depending upon them for support. 

The guide was rather anxious for us to make an excursion 
inside ; which the major seeing, thoughtfully suggested that 
he might go in, and we would wait outside with the boat. 
The guide tried to laugh as if it were a joke ; but it was 
plain to be seen that he eyed the major with considerable 
uneasiness. He was pretty well posted in the geological 
terms used to express ideas in connection with the formations 
of this neighborhood ; although it did not appear at all prob- 
able that he understood the signification of one-sixteenth 
of the phrases he used. The major was quick to perceive 
this, and also the pride the guide felt in airing his knowledge. 
As we moved along toward the Causeway, the guide held 
forth on the various strata of rock, and composition of the 
same. 

He said, — 

" We have also a layer of sulphur. If you will be so good 



368 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

as to look at the base of the rock at the left of the organ, you 
will perceive a thin yellow streak. That is a deposit of sul- 
phur. Many opinions have been expressed by the scientific 
gentlemen that I've taken over this place ; but they can't 
satisfactorily account for its origin. But it is there, an' that's 
plain enough." 

"Do you mean to say that that is a layer of sulphur?" 
suddenly demanded the major. 

" Why, yes, sir ! " gasped the guide. 

" Sulphur of majitum, or the carbonated sulphur? " again 
demanded the major, with some sternness. 

"I — don't — know," said the guide, with evident hesita- 
tion. " Some say one, and some say the other." 

" Oh, indeed ! Well, Mr. McFugle " — 

" McDooley," mildly suggested the guide. 

" Ah, yes ! Well, Mr. Mcjooley " — 

The guide groaned. 

" I would like to have you explain how either the sulphur 
of majitum, or even sulphur in the form of carbon, can rest 
beneath a basaltic formation." 

Mr. McDooley rubbed his head, and looked around un- 
easily. 

" Do you mean to say," continued the major, " that a 
fibrous rock can contain, for even a year's time, a molecular 
substance?" 

" N — no ! " stammered the guide. 

" Of course not ; and yet you present that absurd propo- 
sition to me. Now, Mr. McFoodle, just answer me one 
simple question : What is the percentage of animalcula in a 
resinous rock, when amalgamated under a temperature of 
one hundred and twelve degrees Farenheit?" 

"1 don't — don't remember," stammered the unhappy 
Mr. McDooley. 

"Well, Mr. Mcjoogle, let me give you a bit of advice," 
said the major with some asperity : " When you undertake 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 369 

to escort another professor of psychology over the coast, 
just rub up your knowledge of chronology, and don't attempt 
to impose upon him the absurd ratiocinations of a set of 
addle-pated lachrymalarians." And the major wiped his 
brow with his handkerchief, and looked around upon the 
amazed crew with offended dignity; while the unfortunate 
Mr. McDooley sank back abashed, and never again opened 
his mouth on the subject of geology during the trip. 

We had seen the Giant's Chapel and the Giant's Eye, 
when the boat stopped. One of the men passed me a little 
shaky box of spar, and another passed a similar one to the 
major. It was done with an air suggestive of — 

" We have got you out here away from all help, and you 
either buy these boxes, or go to the bottom." 

In some alarm, I was about to inquire the price ; when the 
major, after a glance at the boxes, and then at the guide, 
broke in with — 

" And what is this ? Ballast ? " 

"No, sir," said the guide humbly: "it is spar, that the 
men wish to sell you for you to take home." 

"Well, Mr. McHooghly, permit me to explain to the 
crew, through you, that we came here on a pleasure-trip, 
and not to buy up paving-stones." 

■ The boxes were taken back, and the boat started on, land- 
ing us in a few minutes on the Causeway, and so adroitly, 
that both of us were caught on the legs by an incoming 
wave. 

The guide whispered to me that the boatmen would 
expect a fee. 

"What for?" I asked. "Doesn't the woman who owns 
the boats pay them? " 

" No, sir : they depend on what visitors may give them." 

He thought a sixpence or so to each of them would do. 
One of them came up just then, and the major handed him 
three shillings. He ducked his head, and asked for another 
shilling to make even money. 



370 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

"Were you ever a corsair?" demanded the major. 

" No, sir," said the man, looking dubiously at him. 

"Well," said the major, handing him another shilling, 
" the next vacancy that occurs, I will recommend you." 

We had hardly got on the Causeway when a shadow of a 
boy assailed us with a handful of photographs. At every 
turn he kept close to us, grinding out his programme. 
Finally the major turned on him. 

" Look here, boy : here is a half-crown for you. And now 
you get off from this Causeway, and out of this county, as 
quick as you can, or I'll look you over ; and, if I find a piece 
of flesh on you, I will stick a knife in it." 

The boy clutched the money, and scampered off. 

" I am glad he is gone," said the major with a sigh, " or 
he'd be falling into some of these crevices and losing his 
life." 

W^e made a careful sur\^ey of the surface of the Causeway ; 
and although the items were similar in feature, yet the whole 
was very interesting. There was the Giant's Well, where the 
removal of a section of a column left room for a couple of 
pailfuls of clear cold water ; also the Wishing Seat, where 
several pillars, projecting above their fellows, made a rude 
attempt at a chair. The guide said, if we sat there and made- 
a wish, it would be fulfilled inside of a twelvemonth. I took 
his advice, and wished that I might have a pair of side- 
whiskers. The major gave his wish aloud, to the effect that 
the guide might give his time to the intelligent study of 
geology ; which made Mr. McDooley wince. When we got 
down from the seat, we found two dowagers peddling a crab 
and some very shrivelled apples. They were kind-hearted 
people. One of them was smoking a pipe, and I was smok- 
ing a cigar, — a circumstance that made a most favorable 
impression upon her. 

" Arrah ! " shouted she, " the gintlemin shmokin' a segare, 
an' the ole woman a pipe ! An' that's the way the money 
goes." 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 37I 

" Pop goes the weasel," gravely suggested the major. 

" An' you'se a foine gintlemin ! " said the old lady admir- 
ingly. " It's the likes of such as you that wouldn't see an' 
ole woman strugglin' for the bread that kapes her body an' 
soul togither, when buyin' a nice foine apple would help 
her." 

" Two pritty gintlemin like thim," added the other dowa- 
ger with considerable feeling, " have money for a good pur- 
pis. Sure a foiner crab than this, man," holding it up ten- 
derly by its left leg, " niver walked the say." 

" And the chapeness oov it ! " chimed in the apple-mer- 
chant sympathetically. " Sure nayther oov thim gintlemin 
is wantin' in knowledge oov a good article." 

" Musha, Mistress Finn," said her companion, who ap- 
peared to be a woman of considerable penetration, " a bat 
at broad noon could see their intelligence, an' how they are 
min oov the world, an' scholars oov high degree." 

The major, who had been looking gravely at both of them 
during their appreciative observations, now spoke : — 

" By my soul, ladies, but you quite overcome my friend 
and myself by the ease of your speech : and as for the fresh- 
ness and vivacity of your persons, sure the wares in your 
basket bear eloquent witness ; for the apples have shrivelled 
up in envy of your cheeks, and the crab has gone madly 
bilious over your suppleness. And I can say in full confi- 
dence, that it is not an Ulster crab that is easily put down." 

This beautiful tribute to their grace of speech and persons 
actually doubled up the dowagers for an instant ; and, before 
they could rally, the major tossed each of them a sixpence, 
and, catching me by the arm, hurried away from the shower 
of " blissings " which was propelled after us. 

Leaving the Causeway, we came upon the Wishing Spring, 
where an able-bodied man mixed its magic waters with hquid 
hydrophobia for tired and unsuspecting travellers. 

The major stopped for a drink. Being an Irishman him- 



3/2 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

self, he said it would not look well for him to turn his back 
on poteen in any shape. 

While the major benumbed himself with the stuff, the 
guide took me a short distance back of a pile of rocks and 
earth, ostensibly for the purpose of getting a close look at 
several pillars standing in the bank, whose claimed altitude 
I had disputed, but actually to sell me a* bit of mineral which 
he had in his pocket. He said, on the way, that any amount 
of samples of the various deposits was sold in the neighbor- 
hood ; but he did not care to do any such business, as it 
was foreign to his tastes. However, he had with him a very 
valuable piece of mineral, which he had designed saving for 
his own gratification ; but, noticing the intense interest I 
took in the various strata and formations, he had resolved, 
after a selfish struggle, to part with it to me. I saw that he 
was going to present it to me ; but, out of courtesy, I asked 
its price. He said he thought ten shilHngs would not be 
any too much for it. I almost said, " Well, I hope to be 
hanged ! " but checked myself in time, and with forced com- 
posure assured him that I would not give ten cents for all 
the minerals he could hold in his cheek. I was much 
amused by his reply : — 

"Well, sir, I couldn't hold many there." Then he tried 
to sell me a fossil ; but I told him I lived in a New-England 
village. He made one more effort on a bit of polished coal ; 
but, the major coming up, he dropped the subject as if it 
had been a bar of hot iron. We took the car from the 
spring, and were jolted up to the house, and there settled 
the bill. When he asked the guide what his charge was, he 
smiled pleasantly, and said it was from two shillings and six- 
pence to five shillings, according to the extent of the trip ; 
but he left it entirely to the kindness of the visitor. They 
all do it, I am sorry to say. 

When we left, the major took the guide to one side, and 
confidentially whispered to him, — 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 373 

"When you see the owner of the Causeway, Mr. Mc- 
Hooghley, please present him my compliments, and tell him, 
that, in my estimation, the best thing he can do with the 
place is to seed it down with square-ribbed Timothy ; and 
in the mean time, if I come across a second-hand pier that 
can be bought cheap, I will immediately write and let him 
know. Good-by, my malarious kohinoor ! Heaven bless 
you ! " 

And with that we rode away, the major smiHng sweetly 
upon everybody in reach. 



374 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XLIV. 



GETTING ON THE WALL. 



FROM Port Rush I went to Enniskillen by way of Lon- 
donderry. I stopped at Londonderry two or three 
hours to see the old city waU. If I am not disastrously mis- 
taken, Londonderry is the only city in the United Kingdom 
boasting a complete wall about it. It is something to see a 
walled city. Aside from the wall, I do not know as there is 
any thing of particular interest in Londonderry. 

Twill tell you how I saw the wall. I left the station, and 
passed into a street of warehouses and dingy stores, with 
here and there an eating-saloon. I stopped at a tobacco- 
store for some cigars, and asked the proprietor for the ad- 
dress of the wall. He told me to keep on until I reached a 
broad, open thoroughfare : I would find the wall there. I 
kept on. When I got on the broad, open thoroughfare, I 
saw opposite the blank side of a wall of masonry. Two 
■arches pierced it, showing through each a vista of street. I 
knew that wasn't the wall, because it disappeared at each 
end in among buildings, and buildings towered above it on 
the other side : so I asked a policeman wjio stood under 
one of the arches to show me the wall, and he said that was 
the wall. And then the following conversation occurred 
between us : — 

" Is there any way of getting up on it? " I asked. 
• " Yes. Are you a stranger? " 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. ^75 

" I am. Is anybody allowed up on the wall?" 

"You are not Irish, are you? " 

" No," said I. 

"English?" 

" No. How do you get up on the wall? " 

" Do you come from America? " 

" Yes. How do you get up on the wall? " 

" There is a stairway beyond. What part of America do 
you come from? " 

" The Rocky Mountains. Is anybody allowed to go on 
the wall?" 

" Of course. How long have you been over? " 

" Seven years. And now will you permit me to ask you a 
question?" I inquired in some desperation. 

" Of course." 

" Thank you ! Good-day ! " 

"Goo — good-day ! " he stammered in some surprise. 

And thus we parted. Shall we ever meet again ? How 
solemn the thought ! 

I mounted a stairway which I found in a narrow street 
running from the arch and emptying into a public-house, 
and was on the wall. 

I do not know the exact date of the building of this work ; 
but it had attained a fair age in 1688, when the famous siege 
occurred. It was built by the city of London at an expense 
of eleven thousand pounds. The wall is of varying width, 
and consists of two exteriors of stone, filled in with earth and 
cobbles. In some places two or three teams could drive 
abreast on it. However, they don't. But it is used as a 
promenade for the citizens. On the outer side is a battle- 
mented guard of stone for the protection of troops operating 
on the wall. Houses and streets are built up against it; 
and the former so hide it, that it is impossible to see any 
considerable portion of it, even when on it, at one glance. 

There are guard-houses and bastions still remaining on it 



3/6 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

(the latter planted with flowers), which were once occupied 
by desperate and starving men, sacrificing for a principle, 
suffering for their religion. 

What dreadfully bitter animosities are* those which one 
Christian will entertain to another ! What an awful thing 
it is to be a politician for Christ, rather .than a lover of him ! 

It is well known, perhaps, to my readers, that the north 
of Ireland was the scene, some two hundred years ago, of 
great contention between the Catholics and Protestants. It 
was about this time that the Duke of York, who was James 
the Second, abdicated his throne, owing to the threatening 
aspect of his people, in favor of his daughter Mary, the wife 
of William, Prince of Orange, who was of the same national- 
ity as the Eleventh Corps in the Army of the Potomac. In 
1688 William and Mary landed in England, and were pro- 
claimed king and queen. Catholic Ireland favored James, 
and united with France to either restore him to the English 
throne, or to wrest Ireland from England, and annex it to 
France. That little affair made the battle of the Boyne, the 
struggle at Enniskillen, and the heroic defence of London- 
derry. The city was built and walled for the protection of 
the Protestants in the neighborhood. 

A splendid Protestant college and model school adorns 
Londonderry. It is called the Magee College, in honor of 
.the endower, Mrs. Magee of Dubhn. 

Late in the afternoon I took the train for Enniskillen. 
Whatever may be said in praise of the green fields, beau- 
tiful lakes, and magnificent mountain-scenery, of Ireland, 
precious little can be written in compliment of the railway 
management. I remember waiting once two whole hours 
to give a team time to return several miles after an inspector, 
whom the driver had neglected to bring with him. One 
hundred people lost that two hours to accommodate one 
man too careless to attend to his own business. When the 
inspector had arrived, and was seeing to some parcels, I 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 37/ 

managed to stumble on a box, and fall against him with suffi- 
cient force to knock him over a trunk. Several bystanders 
remarked upon the singularity of the accident. It was sin- 
gular. 

The trains run in five hours about as far as corresponding 
English trains do in three hours. 

The ride to Enniskillen, sixty miles, v«^as devoid of inter- 
est. An Irish writer says the hotels of his country have 
improved seriously in the past ten years. "Before that 
time," he goes on to remark, " there were not two good 
hotels in the whole country." And so they have improved 
in the last decade ? I hope I feel sufficiently grateful for 
not having had to submit to the hospitality of an Irish hos- 
tlery previous to that time. 

The Enniskillen hotel set a good table ; that is, the food 
was cooked well, as the extent of the table depends almost 
entirely on the taste and pocket of the guest. Its hall-way 
was a narrow passage, with a small opening in the right wall 
for a bar and office, a door opposite leading into a cramped 
and not particularly neat kitchen, ihroicgh which the billiai-d- 
room was approached, a stainvay beyond the kitchen-door, 
and a little smoking-room at the end of the passage. The 
bed-rooms were in good condition, and clean. 

After supper I went into thp billiard-room. The evening 
was wet and chilly ; and a fire was smouldering in the kitchen-, 
fireplace, before which sat two old women, smoking pipes. 
Opposite the door I entered was a narrow, battened door, 
which opened into the bilhard-room. This saloon was about 
fifteen by twenty feet, with a rather agitated floor, a low ceil- 
ing frescoed under the immediate auspices of a swarm of 
flies, and bare and dingy walls. 

The billiard-table was manned by two strapping young 
fellows, and the stable-boy was marking for them. He had 
just the position to please a boy, — plenty to see, and httle 
to do. 



3/8 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

The Irish play billiards with a vim that would be useful at 
a ruction. They are an impetuous people at any time, and 
do not seem to possess the faculty of restraint on needful 
occasion. These two fellows (and fine-looking fellows they 
were) smashed the balls about with a velocity that was aston- 
ishing, and then swore every three minutes at their luck. I 
watched them for an hour ; but, seeing no abatement to their 
speed, I returned to the smoking-room. 

Enniskillen is on Lough Erne, the Killarney of Northern 
Ireland. The lake is about twenty miles in length, and of 
varying width. At the widest part it is, I should judge, full 
six miles. It has a steamer ; but it was not running when I 
was there, owing to lack of patronage' ; although I offered to 
take passage, if the owner would fire up. Half way down 
the lake is a fine hotel ; but its shutters were up, owing to 
lack of patronage. I don't know when Lough Erne will 
pay in a commercial view ; but it must first become popular 
before tourists will visit it. My little experience has taught 
me that people do not come to Europe to see the novel and 
beautiful, but the fashionable. 

Thousands go to Killarney who never hear of Lough Erne ; 
and yet, while Killarney is majestic, this is most beautiful. 

Picture to yourself a lake of its size, with three hundred 
and sixty-five islands dotting its surface, and nearly every 
one of them covered with foliage to the water's edge. Its 
shores are not high and rugged, and it lacks towering moun- 
tains to give it majesty ; but it winds and twists about with 
romantic irregularity, and again widens out into a broad 
expanse as smooth as a mirror ; while the distant isle appears 
like a castellated city of the olden time. 

It is only by a row-boat that the trip is now made ; and I 
took it in company with a gentleman from Pennsylvania, 
who was visiting Enniskillen at the time. 

The propellor of the boat was a short and spare-built 
man, with a stout, pecuhar white face, which denoted the 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOWo 3/9 

presence of the strength of his people, — consumption. No 
people live out doors so much as the Irish, and no people 
suffer so much from this dreadful disease ; and yet fresh 
air is its enemy. I doubted, as I looked at him, that he 
would pull us through ; but the doubt gave way to wonder 
before the trip was over. We pulled around the village, — 
Enniskillen is on an island, — and then through a tongue of 
water to the open lake. As we came out, we passed, on the 
point of land to our right, a modern mansion with fine 
grounds, and on that to the left the broken walls of a castle. 
It is called Portova Castle, from the fact that it stands at the 
point where those taking dead friends to Devenish Island 
embarked in boats ; Portova signifying " Port of Tears." 
We passed close to the castle ; but there was no particular 
interest about it. Nothing but the four walls, with massive 
turrets at each angle, now remain. Of all the gay and 
scheming, and good and bad, and hopeful and despairing, 
who have occupied it, none can boast as much balance as 
the old building, which could see nothing and hears noth- 
ing, can show. 

When you have got to this stage in your journey through 
Europe, you will have come to look upon ruins with about 
the same intensity of interest that you would contemplate 
pine-trees after a month's sojourn in Maine. 



380 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XLV. 



A MEDITATIVE PENNSYLVANIAN. 



AS we moved up the lake, it grew wider ; and in a few 
minutes we got breeze enough to warrant the boatman 
putting up the sail. 

It was a nice breeze ; and, under its impulse, we glided 
comfortably along. I took charge of the helm ; and the 
Pennsylvanian wrapped himself up in his own reflections ; 
which is a habit with Pennsylvanians, he told me. 

Our main objective point was Devenish Island, — a place 
of ruins. Just before we reached it, the boatman pointed to a 
clump of rushes growing up through the water near Devenish, 
and said that it was an island, although now submerged ; and 
that, once on a time, a friar, being sore pressed by a horse- 
man, jumped from Devenish to it, and saved himself. 

This statement aroused the Pennsylvanian at once. He 
stood up in the boat, and looked at the two points. 

"Why," said he, "that is a distance of nearly one hundred 
feet ; and do you mean to say, my man, that anybody ever 
jumped that?" 

" Yes, sir," said the boatman quietly. 

" Did — did it strain him ? " asked my companion anx- 
iously. 

"I don't know, sir," answered the man. "But he did it, 
sir; an' I've often heard it told." 

" Well, I don't believe any man could jump that distance,' 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 38 1 

stoutly asserted my friend; "unless," he shortly added, as a 
new light seemed to strike him, — "unless he — he spit on 
his hands." 

We ran the boat upon the beach, and landed. Devenish 
is an island of some twenty-five acres. It has not a tree or 
bush upon it ; but it is covered with rank grass, — a fact that 
is beautified by distance two hours after a rain. 

Devenish is the most important bit of land, viewed in 
connection with ruins, to be found in Ireland. 

Its ruins consist of remains of a monastery (said to have 
been founded by St. Molaisse thirteen hundred years ago), 
a round -tower, a great church, a priory, and remains of 
earthen forts. ^ 

The item which made the greatest impression upon the 
Pennsylvanian was the height and liquidity of the grass. 
He had on a pair of Philadelphia fine boots ; and, by the 
time he reached the top of the ridge, every pore of those 
boots was drawing water. Despite my expostulations, he 
swore he would return to the boat ; and return he did. He 
said that he didn't care to die in a strange land of inflamma- 
tory rheumatism. 

But I pressed on, although I could feel the water souse in 
my boots at every step. 

Of the ruins^ I came first upon a church-tower, with its 
sustaining arch. This is the church. I picked my way over 
the fallen stones to beneath the arch, and found in one wing 
of it a stairway of stone, but was unable to ascend. A 
portion of a wall was standing ; but there was nothing more 
left of the church, St. Molaisse's house is even less satis- 
factory to the tourist. But a small fragment of one of its 
walls remains. Not long ago it was in a complete state, and 
was then a low, stone-roofed, oblong building, with a door 
at one end. Having been built thirteen hundred years ago, 
it hardly seems possible that it could have been in good 
condition within the present century ; but a glance at this 



382 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

fragment of wall, enormous in thickness, weakens scepticism. 
Some one must have demolished it ; but who he could have 
been, no one knows. He is safe, so far as I am concerned. 
A man who can tear down a building like that will never be 
hunted by any of our family. 

Near by his house, in a mound of earth, is the broken stone 
coffin of St. Molaisse ; but of Saint Molaisse himself there is 
not a pinch. He is as if he never were. The lid to his 
coffin now forms a monument to some individual who is 
trying to snatch a few winks of sleep beneath his stolen 
property. He lies in the graveyard of the church ; for the 
burial-place is still here, and is still in use. These British 
people can make a graveyard go farther than we can. 
Cemeteries four and five hundred years- old are common 
enough here. But in America, as soon as a graveyard gets 
a little old, we dig it up, and put down a new street in its 
place. Ten years after, some one comes along, and wants 
his wife's uncle, who had been laid there. No one knows 
what has become of the old gentleman ; but every one tries 
to pacify the grief-stricken nephew. But he won't be con- 
soled. He dances around, and demands his uncle, and 
finally drags the town into a law-suit. 

The British are more reverential than we, and reap the 
benefit thereof 

The place is still used as a burial-ground, ^ this ^vild^ 
lonesome spot, which nobody can reach without a boat, 
which has no fence about it to keep the cattle who pasture 
here from trampling over and befouling the graves. Saints 
and monks, and holy men of all degrees, have slept here ; 
and, as we are all our lives trying to get into good company, 
it is but natural that the weakness should follow us to the 
grave. 

As you can imagine, many of these graves are but simple 
clumps of earth, with no form to designate their nature. 
They are thick together ; and I dare say they are frequently 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 383 

in layers, one above the other ; and most of them are marked 
by a simple rough stone from the fields, without any mark 
upon it. 

The round-tower interested me more than any other ob- 
ject on the island. Round-towers are peculiar to Ireland 
alone. I don't know how many there are of them here ; but 
they are common. They are the best preserved of any 
stone-work left by the ancients. The gate-posts in Ulster 
are sort of copies of the round-towers. A round-tower is 
from sixty to a hundred feet high, with a sharp, conical roof, 
also of stone. You take a post, and point one end of it, 
and you have the exact pattern of a round-tower. It is 
built of dressed stone, laid so neatly together as to be sym- 
metrical, and to need no mortar. This one has an orna- 
mental cornice around its eaves ; but few do. It has a 
small opening for a door some eight or nine feet from the 
ground, and several openings above, which were probably 
used for windows. This' tower, from the ground to the roof, 
is sixty-seven feet high ; and the roof is sixteen feet in height. 
There were probably six floors to this tower ; but how each 
was reached I am not able to explain, as the internal diame- 
ter of the tower is only eight feet at the base, and but six 
feet and a half at the cornice. Its base has a circumference 
of forty-nine feet, and its top forty-two feet. The wall, 
which is four feet one inch at the bottom, tapers down to 
about eight inches at the top. These figures will give some 
idea of its size and enormous strength. It would be much 
more interesting, if anybody, I am not particular who, knew 
when this and the other towers were built, and what they 
were built for. There is, of course, a vast amount of specu- 
lation in regard to their origin and use. One opinion is, 
that they were built by worshippers of the sun ; another, 
that they were watch-towers (but the people of those times 
never put watch-towers at the base of ridges, unless they 
possessed a kind of idiocy superior to any thing this age 



384 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

knows of) ; still another, that they were constructed as bell- 
towers. That they were for protection is evident by the 
doors being so far from the ground, and there being no rem- 
nant of steps or stoops. A man who had his door from ten 
to fifteen feet from the ground would hardly be careless or 
indifferent in the building of a stoop. There is as much 
divergence of opinion as to their age as to their purpose. 
A claim has been put in to the effect that they were built 
before the beginning of the Christian era ; but I give no 
encouragement to those people. I think they ought to be 
arrested. I have tried to crowd in a theory that they are 
ancient wells, thrown up to the surface by some volcanic 
movement, and roofed in the sharp, conical form by an 
affrighted people, with a view to turning them over, and 
driving them into the earth again. This is the most sen- 
sible idea on the subje'^t that I have yet heard. All that I 
need to make a sure thing of it is to find somebody who 
will explain why they didn't do it. As that is the easiest 
end of the argument, there ought to be no trouble in finding 
him. 

The owner of this island is a proud man, — a round- 
tower, church, priory, stone coffin, oratory, graveyard, and 
pasturage for forty cows, in one lump. A boy with red 
tops to his boots is in the slough of despond alongside of 
this chap. 

When I got back to the boat, I found the crew smoking a 
pipe, and the Pennsylvanian on the beach, trying to get on a 
pair of tight boots over a pair of wet stockings. He had 
got one boot on, and had nearly conquered the other ; but 
he had ruined that beach. In getting on the boots, he had 
gone over a strip of ground about eighty feet in length and 
thirty feet in width, and had torn up the earth over every 
inch of it. When I came up he was as red in the face as a 
beet, and was yelling, and stamping his foot, in a perfect 
ecstasy of rage. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 385 

However, we soon fixed it, and put off for a continuation 
of the trip. The wind still held fair ; and I took the helm, 
while the Pennsylvanian took a seat in the bow, and became 
immediately wrapped up in reflection. 

We passed several islands of no moment, and went by 
three or four farmhouses. The scenery was quiet and im- 
pressive. No life was seen on the shore, and no sound 
came to us but the rippling of the water against the boat. 
There was a heavy bank of black clouds coming up above 
the horizon ; but one could look upon it calmly, as this was 
an inland sheet of water, well protected by high ground. 
' We passed a high ridge, and came out into an open and 
exposed part. Half way across this the wind struck us with 
some considerable force, and the rain came down in tor- 
rents. The sail filled so rapidly as to cause the boat to 
careen half way over. It seemed as .if a gale were tearing 
over the lake. The vessel rode on its e, ge ; and I expected 
every moment we would upset, and wet ourselves. I still 
hung to the helm and an umbrella, and kept to the upper 
side of the sloop. The crew hung to the sail with all his 
might, and the Pennsylvanian buried a face which had as- 
sumed the color of unbolted flour beneath the friendly cover 
of his umbrella. 

All the while, the storm increased in violence ; and the 
boat was now riding in such a position, that it was only by 
lapping my elbow over the taffrail that I kept myself from 
being spilled out. The crew wanted me to keep out to sea ; 
but I concluded, if I was to be wrecked, I would prefer 
being wrecked on land ; and, which was of more importance, 
the umbrella was borrowed, and I did not want to lose it. 
So I ran the bark for the first land ; and we came upon 
the shore with a precision that was gratifying to me as a 
pilot, but with a force that very nearly dislocated the spine 
of the crew. 

We got out of the boat as soon as possible ; but it was not 



386 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

a hospitable shore. There were no trees, but a small thorn 
growing out of the bank, and no shelter of any kind from 
the keen wind and driving rain. There we stood for three- 
quarters of an hour, keeping the tops of our heads perfectly 
dry with the umbrellas. If anybody could have observed 
us, he would have undoubtedly wondered where all the 
water came from which was running down our legs. 

It was a pleasure-party; and we were tourists who had 
nothing to do but to travel around and enjoy ourselves, and 
live at hotels. 

Several times I spoke to the Pennsylvanian about it ; but 
he didn't seem to enter into the spirit of the remark. 

He said, if he could only get safely back to the Cumber- 
land Mountains, he would never leave them for such an out- 
landish and cussed country as this. 

I like to see a man show spirit. 

The rain stopped, and we once more tried the boat ; but 
we didn't put up the sail. The Pennsylvanian said he 
would pull his arms out of their sockets first. 

Our next point of interest was the Island of Innismac- 
saint. There is a church ruin upon it ; but it was a pecul- 
iar cross that I wanted to see. We reached there in about 
an hour. The cross was hardly worth the coming to see : 
it was rude in execution, and peculiar in construction, being 
of one piece, as if cut out of a rough slab. The boatman 
viewed the stone with considerable reverence. 

" Is there any thing remarkable about that? " I asked. 

" Yes, sir. Every Easter morn, at the crowing of the cock, 
the cross jumps out oov the airth, and turns aroond thrice." • 

" Will you be good enough to repeat that remarkable state- 
ment?" asked the Pennsylvanian with breathless interest. 

The crew complied. 

" Did you ever see it perform that little exercise? " 

The crew said he had not. 

" Or anybody who has seen it? " 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 387 

The crew shook his head. 

" I wouldn't stand so close to it, if I were you," said the 
Pennsylvanian kindly : " it may jump out of the ground, and 
kick you into the lake. 

" Oh ! it don't come out only at Easter," said the man 
innocently. 

"You can't always tell," said Penn. "This is just like 
Easter weather, and the cross may have mislaid its al- 
manac." 

The crew shook his head. The gentleman's excessive 
faith rather staggered him. 

We got back to Enniskillen at dark', well tired, thoroughly 
wet, and two-thirds starved. 

The next* day was butter-market, and scores of country- 
people were in town. Their counterparts can be seen in 
Castle Garden on the arrival of an emigrant-ship. There 
were a large number of Connaught men, the pure Irish, — so 
pure as not to have mastered the English language, — who 
brought interpreters with them to enable them to make 
bargains with the village people. They wore corduroy pants, 
and long frieze coats, and decayed stovepipe hats. They 
are dying out, are the old Irish, and a new people are 
crowding them out ; and the day will come when the pure 
Irish will have passed into history and legend. 

Go up and down the principal streets of Belfast, Dublin, 
Cork, or any other Irish city, and four-fifths of the names on 
the places of business are not familiar as Irish names to us 
Americans. 

And why not ? Ireland is a fine country, has excellent 
seaports, good soil, and is most healthfully located. The 
Irish themselves are deserting it, and enterprising men of 
other countries are pushing in there. ' The result is as certain 
as the kick of a mule. 



^S8 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XLVI. 



AN ANCIENT CANDY-PULL. 



I HAVE always had' the impression that Wales could show 
more ruins than any of the three countries which help it 
to make up the United Kingdom ; but I am beginning to 
waver. Ireland abounds in ruins. It would be absurd in 
me to give a detailed description of the many I have seen, 
or even to refer to them separately. I haven't the time, nor 
you the patience, to permit. 

All that I can do is to say that they exist in every 
• direction, are to be found on the hill-tops and in the valleys, 
and consist of castles, fortifications, tombs, churches, &c. 
The only objection that any one can have to them is their 
dismal similarity. Shake them up together in a blanket, and 
turn them out again, and I doubt if the owners of two-thirds 
of them could select their property. This is a frightful state 
of things. 

America's principal interest and sympathy is with England's 
history; Scotland comes next, Ireland third, and Wales 
fourth : so the local history of the ruins of Ireland interests 
us much less than the local history of those of either 
England or Scotland. But the traditions, legends, and 
records of these Irish ruins are sufficiently graphic to satisfy 
the most exacting in ghostly lore or heroic memories. 

Both Ireland and Wales would have got along much better 
on the start if their early heroes had possessed reasonable 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. . 389 

cognomens. We soon tire of a man whose name we can't 
pronounce ; and it is not to be expected, that, at this great 
distance, we can take the slightest interest in the affairs of 
Hi Failge, Magh-Liffe, Maehnordha, Colla-dachuch, Uidhir, 
and other people of like names. There was, for instance, 
St. Moeog, — a good man, undoubtedly ; but just think of his 
name, and the names he descended from ! His father's name 
was Aedh. His mother came of Amhalgaidha, who was the 
son of Tiachra, who was the son of Eochaidh Muighmedhoin. 
They didn't have directories in those days. That is the only 
thing that saved them. 

The fact is, the early history of Ireland has been simply 
self-containing : it has not influenced the outside world ; 
it has operated only on itself ; and, for centuries, it consisted 
simply of family and sectional broils. 

But it has spilled blood enough to make its soil the richest 
in the kingdom. 

Once Ireland was divided into four kingdoms, each having 
a separate coujt ; and the whole country is scarcely three 
hundred miles in its greatest length, and not two hundred 
miles at its greatest breadth. Those divisions remain unto 
the present day, and are called Ulster (the north), Connaught 
(the west), Leinster (the east), and Munster (the south). 
Belfast is the chief city of the first ; Galway, of the second ; 
Dublin, of the third ; and Cork, of the fourth. 

I went direct to Dublin from Enniskillen, as I was obliged 
to go to England for a few days. 

On my return I left Dublin, and took a cut across the 
country to Galway. How much I had heard of the " men 
of Galway," and how I longed to see them ! 

The ride was wofully lacking in interest. We passed 
through Maynooth, Mullingar, and Athlone, whose names you 
are familiar with. They were straggling towns, built upon 
the same model; a few prominent houses in the centre, 
with a belt of low, white-washed, thatched-roofed dwellings 



390 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

of the poor, making the suburbs. It had been raining all 
the night before, and the streets were muddy and dreary in 
the extreme. 

For the greater part of the route the country was barren, 
and the houses wretched. I might say that all I passed, so 
few were the exceptions, were one-story stone buildings, with 
white-washed walls and thatched roofs. They frequently set 
down in a hollow, with no cared-for grounds around them, 
with scarcely a length of fence about them. It had been 
raining ; and the one or two cows and horse of the occupants 
had cut up the soft turf about the doors, making mud and 
mud-puddles. The fields were, to a great extent, unculti- 
vated, and, by their appearance, afforded slim pasturage. The 
staple production appeared to be potatoes ; and the Irish 
know how to raise potatoes, and, better still, how to cook 
them. 

The nearer we approached Galway, the poorer and more 
desolate became the country ; and within a few miles of that 
city we came upon a stony district, the formation being not 
greatly dissimilar to that at the Giant's Causeway. We also 
passed here a number of shells of stone shanties, the roofs 
and doors being gone. 

The Irish, as you are probably aware, are partial to immi- 
gration. They g-o to America in great numbers to better 
themselves. It is a great place for that purpose, and these 
roofless and doorless shanties were once occupied by people 
who are now in America. They couldn't take them to their 
new home : they were not theirs to sell. They left them. 
And, once alone and unprotected, the neighbors and the 
elements have done the rest. But it may be inquired here, 
Did not the landlord have an interest in this matter? and 
why did he not take care of his property? These are 
pertinent inquiries. The generally-received idea of a land- 
lord is a man who guards his property with a jealous eye, 
and exacts his own to the utmost farthing. And so I don't 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 39 1 

understand this Irish-landlord question. I hear of absent 
and careless landlords, and of tyrannizing and avaricious 
landlords ; but these terms do not explain the trouble. They 
are not synonymous, if I know myself; but they are both 
used to express the same result. 

I am told, that as the landlords are absent from their prop- 
erly, and indifferent to the interests of their tenants, the 
tenants suffer. And another scholar and philosopher says 
the landlord divides up his property into small farms of from 
five to twenty-five acres each, with a view to getting the 
most money out of it ; and a man with so little land makes 
hardly sufficient to get food for his family ; and that is the 
reason the land is desolate, and the houses mere shanties. 
But this don't explain those stripped houses, because the 
farms attached to them are of but a few acres, which shows 
the avaricious landlord ; and they are stripped of the straw 
on their roofs and the wood from the doors, which indicates 
the absent and profligate and indifferent landlord. If you 
can explain this, I hope you will come over here and do so. 

But we will leave the topic for the present. 

On reaching Galway,. I found a large four-story, handsome 
building as the station hotel, and I was glad to see it. As it 
h about the first building the visitor to Galway sees on arriv- 
ing, he naturally falls into the error of believing the city to 
be large and flourishing. I presume this hotel has ample 
accommodation for two hundred guests, with broad, lofty halls, 
splendid stairways, a fine bilHard-room, coffee-rooms, &c. 

Galway has a population of thirteen thousand, or rather 
did have three years ago ; but, judging from the ratio of 
decrease in the past ten years, it may be doubted if it now 
has that number. 

One writer on the towns of Ireland says, " Such a town 
as Galway does not exist in Ireland." Another says, " In 
Galway the traveller will find a quaint and peculiar city, with 
antiquities such as he will meet nowhere else." And still 



392 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

another writes, " I found something at every step to remind 
me of the cities of Spain, and a people fully as picturesque 
as the Moors." Each writer finds a marked resemblance in 
the town to Spanish cities. Now, I never smelt of a Spanish 
city ; but I am sure Galway is no dirtier, and smells no worse, 
than Tuam, Killarney, Cashel, and many other Irish towns. 
So why it should be selected above these places as peculiar- 
ly like the cities of Spain is something I do not quite under- 
stand. 

Galway is a lazy place, with a fine hotel it hasn't got 
money enough to support, and warehouses it hasn't the 
business to keep going. Its streets are narrow, crooked, and 
not clean. Its people are like other people on this west 
coast, but far more pronounced in the true Irish characteris- 
tic than those to be found in the north and east or south. 
They are well-formed men and buxom women. It must be 
remembered that I am speaking of the lower classes, — the 
poor, which are to be seen on every hand in these European 
cities. They are not like the people of American towns, — 
the working, active Yankee people. You notice that the 
moment you come here. And, when you speak of the people, 
you refer to but one class ; and that is the poorer class, for 
they are about the only ones you see in the back towns. 
There is some wealth about here, of course ; for one man 
near Enniskillen has a two-million-dollar residence, and we 
all know that it costs money to build a two-million-dollar 
house. But the aristocrats are few, and far between. 

The typical Irishman is seen only on the theatrical stage 
and in Galway. The next day after my arrival was the mar- 
ket-day, and scores of typical Irishmen were in town. They 
were spare built, and of good height. They wore frieze 
coats of swallow-tail pattern, and corduroy breeches \v^hich 
came only to the knee, where they fit closely to blue or gray 
woollen stockings. That end of them was finished off with 
gaiter-shoes having thick soles. They wore on their heads 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 393 

rusty Stovepipe hats, somewhat weak in the crown ; and they 
generally carried their hands in their pockets, and a short 
stick under one arm, — the first Irishmen I had seen with the 
national characteristic. Many of them were rosy-cheeked 
and bright-eyed ; but others were pale-faced and pinch-eyed, 
as men who had toiled and suffered, and had long ago given 
up all hope, and were now patiently bearing their burden. 

It was the market-day, and rainy. I was up early, and 
from the coffee-room window could look down a street lead- 
ing from the country into the market-square. And up this 
street for a full hour the farmers straggled along with their 
produce. Each one had a little pony or donkey hitched to 
a low cart, which appeared to have thills at each end ; and 
on the cart were a half-dozen or so of long bags filled with 
potatoes. Some of them had oats, and a few brought in hay 
or straw. The farmer appeared at the head of the animal, 
with his hand on the bridle ; while the wife either rode or 
walked behind. She wore a bluish cloak of frieze, which 
reached nearly to her feet, with a cape over the head. Some 
of them wore white caps under the cape, and red petticoats 
under the cloak. They were well-formed, healthy-looking 
women, with faces and arms browned by out-door work. 
Some of them were very old and shrivelled, and worn out by 
years of toil. This was their life, — toil all the week, and 
trudge into town every market-day. The shrivelled was 
once buxom ; and the buxom could look at the shrivelled, 
and see the end as plainly as if she had already reached it. 

The clerk of the market met them at the head of the 
street, and collected their toll ; and they passed on into the 
square, and took up their position. Then the buyers came 
about and examined their produce, and shook their heads 
very despondently over the exhibit, as being so much infe- 
rior to what they had expected, but finally endeavored to 
look more hopeful, and at last offered, as an encouragement 
to farming, five per cent under the market-price. I wan- 



394 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

dered among them for an hour or more, listening to blarney, 
bickering, and wit. 

When I went over to Ireland, an Irish gentleman said to 
me, — 

" Don't be disappointed if you do not find among the 
poor classes that sharp wit which the stage and anecdotes 
have ascribed to them. I am a native, and have travelled 
considerably about my country ; but I have failed to discover 
it in real life. I am proud to believe that my countrymen 
are as sharp as the average ; but they are not supernaturally 
so, as writers and actors would have us believe ; and the 
man who goes over there with the impression that we are a 
nation of wits is disappointed of course, and frequently falls 
to abusing us as a set of dummies." 

It is just as well, perhaps, that I encountered him. 

These men in rusty garments and knock-kneed hats are 
the farmers. Those huts or shanties outside, with their 
thatched roofs and mud surroundings, are the farm-houses. 
Where the farm-laborers are I don't know. I don't want to 
see them, if their employers are in such destitute circum- 
stances. 

I had a talk with a Galway editor on the subject of farm- 
ing. He said the poverty of the country was due to the 
government of England. He appeared to be quite unani- 
mous about that. I asked him if the north of Ireland was 
governed by England. He said it was. I asked him if 
he could explain why prosperity existed there, and did not 
here ; why the farms there, with poorer soil than the farms 
here, were smiling, while these were weeping. He explained, 
that I, being a foreigner, could not understand these things. 
He was right about my being a foreigner ; but as to not un- 
derstanding " these things " he was wrong. 

The Irish people are impulsive, warm-hearted, generous. 
Those at the north have got, with their Scotch blood, tlie 
Scotch pertinacity ; and you couldn't starve them if you kept 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 395 

them on a billiard-table. Their landlords are of the same 
blood and characteristics. They won't let their land run 
waste, nor their materials rust and rot : that is money out 
of their pockets. They don't mortgage their farms for means 
to enable them t© be "good fellows " in the London world. 

The landlords here are " good fellows " both in Dublin 
and London, but poor cusses at home. They hunt, gamble, 
and drink ; and the tenants can go to the devil, for all they 
care to the contrary. They give a man from five to twenty- 
five acres for a farm, and will give him no definite lease 
of even this pittance. He cannot go to work making im- 
provements in the buildings or fences or stock; for he 
knows not how soon he may be turned out to make room for 
some one else. It is even risky for him to draw out manure 
in the fall ; for he knows not but that in the spring another 
will spread it. 

No wonder his clothes are rusty, and his donkey has a 
rope harness, and his hens roost on the backs of his chairs. 

If the leaders of the people would only teach him how to 
force his landlord into decent terms, they would do far more 
good for Ireland than they will ever accompKsh by howling 
at England. 

But it is more congenial to their tastes to make faces at a 
powerful neighbor than to remove the distress and misery 
of a weak one. • 

These poor farmers and their famihes have my heartiest 
sympathy, as they gain, the sympathy of every one who goes 
among them, and sees their troubles, their toil, and the gen- 
uine goodness of their hearts. They are easily depressed, 
and as easily buoyed ; and then they forgive and forget, and 
are roughed on again, and the whole thing repeated. You 
don't blame them, of course, for getting out of here as soon 
as they can, and striking out for America. But you will be 
somewhat startled to learn that many of them are coming 
back again. As badly off as they are here, and as fair and 



396 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

free as is our country, these people, or rather many of them, 
who have gone to America, have reached the conclusion that 
Ireland is the best place of the two to starve in; and so 
new roofs of straw and turf are going over some of the 
tenantless walls which abound in this section, and bright- 
looking American trunks are illuminating the luggage-cars. 

They are beginning to think the land of the free and the 
home of the brave is a failure ; and in some senses it is. 
But they ought to be glad they earned enough there to bring 
them back again ; and, if the trip has taught them that their 
worst enemy is their own kith and kin, they need never regret, 
but can always rejoice, that they went to the States, and so- 
journed under the "stars and st7'ips " as they and the Scotch 
call our precious flag. 

Nature has designed the Irish race for apple-peddlers. 
Nowhere else, except in New York, will you see so many 
old women peddling apples. I never saw them sell any ; but 
they peddle them. There were three of them on one corner 
in the square to-day. I was attracted to them by an old 
woman with one good leg and one wooden one, who had 
taken offence at one of the merchants, and was giving her a 
terrific tongue-lashing. I moved up to the scene of combat ; 
but I could not understand it. The foe did, however, and 
squirmed so visibly, that I was intensely anxious to know 
what was going on. But it was Gaelic, and not a word of it 
could I decipher. The guilty woman made no response ; 
and the one-legged virago, after exhausting herself, gave a 
triumphant howl, and settled down on the pavement, and said 
no more. 

Most of the women of the poorer classes go bareheaded 
in the north part of Ireland, and both bareheaded and bare- 
footed here and in the south. Then Galway has a class of 
women peculiar to itself. They have a little village on the 
bay called " The Claddagh." They live by fishing ; the men 
catching the fish, and the women selling them in the streets 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 39/ 

of the town. It is a community by itself, believing that the 
Galwegians are inferior to themselves, refusing to intermarry 
with them, but consenting (of course with ill grace) to take 
their money. 

The Claddagh men I did not see, as they were away in 
their boats ; but the women I saw, and saw them vehemently. 
They wore huge baskets on their back, full of small fry ; or 
carried a bowl-shaped basket on their head, with a single fish 
in it. The last were codfish, and would weigh from five to 
fifteen pounds. I was rarely solicited to buy the small fish ; 
but not one of the fifty women I met carrying a monstrous 
codfish but was anxious that I should buy it. They even 
came into the hall of the hotel while I was standing there, 
and pressed me to buy the fish. Being a stranger there, and 
staying at a hotel, it seemed natural enough that I should be 
torn by anxiety to purchase a ten-pound codfish. But I 
didn't do it. Every time I went out of the hotel, or returned 
to it, I found a one-eyed, lusty young fellow, with a disagree- 
able breath, on the walk in front, who besought me, for the 
love of God, to give him a copper or two for bread to save 
his perishing body. It was sad to see a fellow being starved ; 
but I couldn't help but wish I weighed as much as he did. 
Every day, and all day long, he hung in front of the hotel, 
skirmishing for coppers, and robbing some paper-mill of raw 
material. 

On every street there was some deformed specimen crying 
for help, for the love of a good God. When I go to begging 
coppers, I shall try to do it on my own hook, and not shoulder 
the responsibility on to my Creator, who has put it into the 
heart of a good government to make every provision for the 
destitute. 

One of Galway's buildings, or rather fragment of a build- 
ing, was the residence of a gentleman named Fitz-Stephen 
in 1524. He was the mayor of the town, and had one son. 



398 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

The printed legend is to the effect that the son went to 
Spain on business to some Spanish firm for his father ; and, 
while there, the firm made up a valuable cargo to send to 
Galway, and a son of a member accompanied it. On the 
voyage young Fitz-Stephen conspired with the crew to mur- 
der the young Spaniard, and convert the property to their 
own use. The deed was subsequently discovered to the 
mayor, who took summary vengeance on the murderer, — 
his son. 

But this is an absurd version of the murder. Does any 
one suppose, for an instant, that a man who had made but 
one sea-voyage would be in a fit condition to conspire to a 
murder ? If you think so, just take a trip across the Atlan- 
tic in a sailing-vessel ; and you will feel so little like murder, 
that you will only be too- glad to crawl away somewhere in 
the hold, and be grateful for permission to die in peace. 
And, then, remember that he was the son of a mayor, and 
that the crime was committed for plunder. Now, there is 
no one insane enough to suppose that the son of a mayor 
would murder for money. What on earth does the son of a 
mayor want of money ? 

The idea is so ridiculous, that it vexes me sorely to see 
people believing it. The true story, and an eminently plausi- 
ble one, my Galway friend related to me. 

Young Fitz-Stephen did not go to Spain ; but the young 
Spaniard came to Galway, and was the honored guest of the 
mayor and family. He staid here for some days, the place 
smelling so much like home as to make him contented with 
the people. He had free range of the castle of the Fitz- 
Stephens, which was then a noble two-story building, with 
a separate structure for the hens. 

But in an evil moment he fastened his eye on the heiress 
of a considerable property across the river. The ruins of 
her father's homestead are still here. Young Fitz-Stephen 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 399 

had previously fastened one of his eyes on the same young 
lady, and saw, with some trepidation, that the gallant young 
Spaniard, who wore a yellow neckerchief and played on a 
guitar, was getting rather thick over there. I know a little 
something myself of these guitar-players : they are death 
on women. One of them cut me out, when I was mortally 
sure of having every thing to myself; and I never since could 
bear the sight of a guitar. Young Fitz-Stephen was not 
made of such firm stuff as I am, and so he allowed jealousy 
to get the upper hand of him. There was a party at her 
father's castle one evening, — a sort of candy-pull, — to 
which all the young people were invited. Fitz-Stephen and 
the Spaniard were there. The latter took a lively interest in 
the candy, and ate some twelve pounds of it ; but Fitz 
soured on it. 

The next morning the body of the Spaniard was found in 
the back-yard, his throat cut from ear to ear, and his hair full 
of imperfectly-boiled molasses. Young Fitz was charged 
with doing the deed, although it is more than likely that the 
deceased overdid himself at the candy. I have seen just 
such people as he, young beginners and gallant, at candy- 
pulls, and have made it a practice to always take a look in 
the back-yard the next morning for their bodies. 

The mayor tried his son, found him guilty, and con- 
demned him to be executed on a certain day. But no one 
could be found to be the hangman. The young man was 
popular, and had many relatives and friends. They besought 
the mayor to have mercy upon him, and to pardon him. They 
were confident he could not execute his son. On the morn- 
ing of the day appointed by the old gentleman, the relatives 
and friends went to the house ; and the first there fell back 
in horror at beholding, dangling from a front-window, the 
body of the unhappy son ! The old ass had hung him. 

The moral of this story is very plain. Young men who 



400 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

are sons of mayors should eschew Spaniards, and not fool 
around candy-pulls. 

But, really, wouldn't you like to see a nineteenth-century - 
father hanging his son ? — or even making him come in early 
of an evening? 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 4OI 



CHAPTER XLVII. 



GOING TO AN IRISH FAIR. 



RETRACING my way to Athenry, thirteen miles from 
Galway, I took a branch road to Tuam, eighteen miles 
from Athenry. The country between Athenry and Tuam is 
even more desolate than that between Athenry and Galway. 
The land either lay in wide moor, or sloped up into hills 
bare and bleak. Here and there was a farm-shanty ; and in 
several of the fields the occupants, mostly women, were en- 
gaged digging potatoes. 

I went up to Tuam to attend a fair. Irish fairs have a 
reputation that is not limited to Ireland, and I wanted to 
see one. The fair at Donnybrook generally ended in a 
pleasure and rowdy bout, precipitated upon the poor Donny- 
brookers by Dublin rowdies. But the authorities broke that 
up some years ago ; and now Donnybrook is a quiet and 
well-behaved suburb of Dublin, and has exchanged the some- 
what doubtful fame of other days for the less exciting but 
eminently respectable position of being emblazoned on the 
side of a street-car. 

Of course the fairs in this country are not like ours. In 
England they consist of a display of agricultural implements 
and cattle. The American visitor misses the cage of white 
mice, and the bed-quilt pieced by a lady one hundred years 
old, and deformed vegetable products. But the English 
have two or three good bars on the grounds; and, after the 



402 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

American has visited each two or three times, he loses his 
discontent in a measure. 

In Ireland, fairs are numerous. Nearly every town has 
one or more in the course of the year. I thought it must be 
a remarkably lively agricultural region to support so many 
fairs. In this month alone (October), over four hundred 
fairs are held in Ireland ; there were full as many last 
month; and they hold them more or less through the fall 
and winter and spring months. 

Why, you would imagine you had got into a paradise of 
farmers. 

The Tuam fair was to be held on Tuesday, Wednesday, 
and Thursday. It was to be a big fair. I went up Saturday, 
as I understood there was but one really good hotel in Tuam, 
and I wanted a room. Saturday was the market-day. A 
jaunting-car took me from the station, through a straggling 
street, into the market-place, where was located the hotel. 
The driver of the car, emulous of the speed made by his 
brethren of Dublin, and believing that I came from that 
city, endeavored to go over the route at a break-neck pace, 
very much to the astonishment of the horse, but was humili- 
atingly balked by divers persons, who, not understanding 
that I was from Dublin, and scarcely realizing the necessity 
for unusual speed, persisted in getting in the way, and bring- 
ing their donkey-teams with them. The driver, who was so 
long and lank as to look dreadfully like a Yankee, kept up a 
continual " hi-yi-ing " from the station to the hotel ; and, on 
arriving there, he had become so heated, ajid his eyes set so 
far out of his head by the exertion, that I cheerfully paid 
double fare. 

We found the market-place full of people. Most of them 
were farmers and farmers' wives, with the low, long carts, 
and donkeys attached. Some of them were the poor of the 
town, attracted by idle curiosity, or by the prospect of pick- 
ing up a few pennies in answer to well-worded appeals, or in 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 4O3 

exchange for copious blessings. And many were of a new 
class, not yet seen, but plenty at fairs : they were cattle- 
buyers, — sturdy men, in the prime of manhood, and enjoy- 
ing that degree of health consequent upon out-door exercise 
and a well-regulated conscience. A cattle-buyer's con- 
science is a perfect gem — in its way. These were well- 
dressed in well-made great-coats, top-boots, and a diamond 
ring. They carried canes, and were close to business. 
Some of them were fine-looking young fellows from Dublin ; 
but more prominent than all were the long-limbed and 
broad-shouldered men of Ulster, — the finest-looking men 
that old Ireland can number among her sons ; and finer can- 
not be found in any country. 

All of them had bright eyes, white teeth, and red cheeks, 
and were hearty of voice. They stood in painful contrast 
to the men with whom they dealt. 

There were potatoes for sale, and oats, and a few sheep 
and pigs, and straw and peat. 

Galway County, and pretty much all of Ireland, is well 
supplied with the tough turf called peat. In most places it is 
dug up in the cakes which we see in the markets. In other 
places, where it is not quite so tenacious, it is harvested in 
the crumbling form, and pressed by machinery into bricks. 
In the cities it is quite frequently sold in bags to those who 
are in good circumstances ; but the poor classes of the city 
buy but few bricks or sods at a time, paying a halfpenny for 
four sods. Here and in the country it is sold by the don- 
key-load, the load being a pile about four feet square, for 
four shillings a load. 

It makes considerable heat, a bright coal, and a white 
ash. It is not so clean to handle as coal, and is not so 
heavy ; but you have got to handle more of it in a day, 
which compensates for lack of weight. It has one decidedly 
good feature : its ashes do not require sifting. 

I had gone to the best hotel in Tuam. It was a low, 



404 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

three-Story building. Tfie grand hall-way was scarcely three 
feet wide. It was floored with stone, and was on a level 
with the sidewalk. I have said that it had been raining, 
and of course there was an abundance of mud. This last 
had been ingeniously guarded against by laying straw in the 
doorway. The straw was wet, and reeking with mud from 
brogan and boot, and part of it lay on the walk ; but the 
greater part had been dragged along the passage, adding to 
the dreariness of that apartment. 

Tuam is not much of a place, except ecclesiastically, as it 
is an Episcopalian see and Roman-Catholic archbishopric. 
The Church of Ireland (a branch of that of England) and 
the Church of Rome have each a cathedral in Tuam. For 
a place of scarcely five thousand inhabitants, that is doing 
very well. 

The Church of Ireland, being an established body, is 
largely supported from the government money ; but the dis- 
establishment act has done away with this expense, and, when 
the present incumbents of pulpit and chair vacate, their suc- 
cessors will have to depend upon the zeal of their parishes 
for income, as do the Catholics and Dissenters. While I 
am speaking of religion, I might as well say that there are 
four million Catholics, and twelve hundred thousand Protes- 
tants, in Ireland. Of the last-named, over a half-milhon are 
Presb}1;erians. What Methodists there are reside in the 
north of Ireland ; which is one of the causes, perhaps, of the 
prosperity of that section. The poorest place to look for 
pasturage is under the feet of a Methodist. 

Well, as Tuam has scarcely five thousand inhabitants, and 
is built rather compactly, it doesn't take long to look over it. 
I devoted a couple of hours to the task ; and I found it a 
task. The mud lay thick everywhere. Many of the houses 
were simply shanties, and squalid appearing ; and the people 
whoin one mostly met were painfully poor. Every little 
while I came upon a few words over a door to the effect 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 405 

that the party inside was licensed to retail beer or porter. 
Going into one of these, I found an earth floor, a wall imme- 
diately oil the right, with a long bench in front of it, a small 
bar to the left covered with stains, and a roaring fireplace 
at the end of the bar. Hanging from a hook in the chim- 
ney was a huge pot of boiling potatoes. I went into several 
of those places ; but they were so much alike, even to the 
boiling of potatoes, as to be monotonous. I talked with 
the bar-tender (who was every time a woman), and found 
that she had a cousin in America " who was doing well," 
but not so well now as formerly ; which led the speaker to 
fear that the States would soon be as bad as any country. 
A gentleman who receives money sent by the girls and 
young men of his neighborhood who are now in America, 
and disburses it to their friends at home, informs me that he 
invariably notices a gradual falling-off in the amounts, pro- 
portionate to the time of their stay. They send twice as 
much the first year as they do the fifth, and as much again 
in the fifth as they send in the tenth year. In some cases 
the remittance had died out entirely. It shows what a 
place America is for losing money. 

Going up one of the straggling streets which led into the 
market-place, a sudden shower came up ; and I stepped into 
the open door of one of the houses, where I was made 
heartily welcome by the inmates. An old man who was sit- 
ting by the fire, smoking a pipe, took the pipe out of his 
mouth at once ; and picking up his stick, which stood against 
the jamb of the fireplace, he dexterously poked a hen from 
the back of the only whole chair ; and the old woman, his 
wife, gave it a dust with her skirt, and placed it before the 
fire for me. 

The old man and his wife had gone over the threescore- 
and-ten mark, and were resting from their labors. Their 
only child, a daughter, had married a young man who 
worked for a farmer two miles distant for seven shillings a 



406 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

week ; and the daughter did cleaning and other odd jobs for 
the gentry famihes. 

And this young man, on his seven shilHngs a week, freely 
divided with his mother-in law and her husband ; and they 
both spoke of him with a pride begotten of true affection. 

The room was not a large one ; but it was kept dry by the 
thatched roof. The floor was of earth, worn into many 
hollows. The furniture consisted of an old-fashioned clothes- 
press which reached nearly to the boarded ceiling, the 
chair I occupied, a broken chair which the old lady used, 
a sort of box-bench which he sat on, and another bench 
capable of holding three people. There was a clock against 
the wall, and a table, on which were two plates, a cracked 
teacup, an earthen cup, some potato-peeHngs, and a bit 
of bread, — the remnants of a breakfast. The hen which 
left my chair squatted discontentedly under the table, and 
eyed me moodily during my stay. There were two more 
hens. One of them moved around, but said nothing ; while 
the other dozed on the window-seat. 

In back of this was an apartment which was used as a 
bedroom ; and near one corner of the living-room was a 
very rough ladder, which led into the loft. 

The old people were glad to hear I was from America. 
To them it was a sort of past dream. There had been a 
time, when Mary Ann was a child, that they thought of going 
over to the wonderful country : but he was taken down with a 
bad cold, from ditching in a bog for Mr. Clare ; and the 
weeks of sickness consumed their savings, and broke up 
their enterprise. But, God be praised ! he was saved from 
the door of death, "Warn't ye, Dani'l, mon?" To which 
he promptly affirmed. 

The next day was Sunday ; and a very pleasant day it was, 
barrin' a strong wind. I went to the Catholic cathedral in 
the morning. It stood in enclosed ground, back from the 
street, and was approached by a lane. In this lane, from 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 407 

the gate to the cathedral-grounds, were beggars. Some of 
them were in sort of watch-houses on wheels, with their 
affliction announced over the top. Others had no physical 
trouble, excepting a serious appetite ; and they moved around 
on their feet. These were importunate for money. 

Beggars are shockingly numerous in this country. In my 
walk about town Saturday, I encountered nearly two dozen. 
One of them was a man with his nose freshly off, — so freshly, 
that it was bleeding afresh when I met him." I shelled out 
at once, and departed without waiting for the usual blessing. 
Another had his legs twisted about each other ; still another 
had the lower half of his right arm grown back on the upper 
half; and one woman had lost the greater part of her face 
through a cancerous trouble. I never stopped to argue with 
those people. The beggars in the cathedral lane did not 
get violently rich that morning. 

One old woman said to another old woman, — 

" Did ye get any thin' the mornin' ? " 

" Divil a ha'pinny ! " murmured the other in a hushed 
voice. 

A troop of beggars is not what one generally hankers for 
when skirmishing around for scenery; but, while he may 
pardon them for their pauperism, he cannot, if he be in the 
least sensitive, Hsten to their wholesale use of holy names 
without shivering. 

I have heard drunken women, with blackened eyes and 
bloated faces, direct holy beings where to bestow their 
blessings in case of a donation, and cursing like mad if 
the coveted prizes were not secured. 

And those who are really in want, and are really helpless, 
sit at home, and starve. 

The more prosperous classes seem to be divided in their 
view of the beggars, but are united in condemning the 
practice. The Irish are fully as generous as they are reputed 
to be, and the beggars are fortunate in their location. 



408 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

One old woman, who squeezed a few pennies from me by 
her plaintive story and neat appearance, was indignantly 
rebuked by a resident of Tuam (a stranger to me), who 
charged her with having more money in the bank than any 
one Tuamite can boast. 

At that she went for him, but not in a plaintive way. 

When I looked out of my window in the morning, I was 
somewhat perplexed by seeing several apple-peddlers on the 
corner opposite. I had the impression that it was Sunday ; 
but I began to doubt, on seeing this display of mercantile 
activity in a civilized country. Towards noon, I saw that 
corner, and the one next to it, filled up with peddlers ; and, 
on moving about through the few streets, I found several 
groceries, vegetable-stalls, and the like, doing business. 
They were probably kept open in case of sudden sickness, 
as is the case with cigar-stores and barber-shops in America. 

Late in the afternoon I walked into the suburbs, and 
witnessed a very exciting game of football. 

If I was surprised at the sight which greeted me on 
looking out of my bedroom-window on Sunday morning, I 
was dumfounded by that which greeted my eyes as I cast 
them over the market-place on Monday morning. It had 
rained in the night, and the pavement was muddy ; but the 
sun shone bright and clear. There were but few people in 
sight ; and nearly all of them were intently observing a man 
in a suit of frieze clothes, who was hobbling on his knees 
from one corner to another of a street which came into the 
market-place, opposite the hotel. His pants were pulled up 
above the knees, and the bare flesh came in contact with the 
gritty mud. Those who observed him maintained a re- 
spectful distance, but watched him closely. I didn't know 
what to make of him. From seeing him on his bare knees, 
I concluded he was a cripple, under the influence of liquor. 
He made his way with great difliculty across to the opposite 
corner. Then he got upon his feet, and walked across the 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 409 

angle of the sidewalk to the pavement again, pulled up his 
pants, got down on his knees, and started across the square 
on his painful way. Then I saw that he was neither drunk 
nor crippled. Then I knew what he was up to : he was 
doing a penance. And still I watched him. The crowd 
rapidly augmented, which surprised me ; for I thought pen- 
ances of the kind were common here. 

When he got two-thirds across the place, a policeman 
appeared, and stopped him. The crowd, which was now 
quite large, pressed about the two. The object of all the 
excitement seemed inclined to carry out his purpose ; but 
the policeman made him rise, and drop down his pants, and 
"move off." 

When I got down to breakfast, I " dropped " on the waiter 
for the particulars ; but, although a singularly communicative 
individual, he had nothing to say on this topic, except that 
he thought the man, whoever he might be, was a " d — d 
fool." A curate of the Church of Ireland was my fellow- 
guest at the hotel ; and, when he came down to breakfast, I 
pounced on him ; but he laughed at me, and said I was joking 
him. And as for my penance theory, he scouted it at once. 
I inquired of others about town ; but I could get no satis- 
faction. They had not seen the man, and were sure that he 
was either drunk or a cripple. Pretty soon I ceased to be 
anxious for some one who could explain to me what the man 
was doing, and began to look around for somebody who had 
seen him. But I was not successful in even this. I spent the 
evening with a genial Irish family, and, watching my opportu- 
nity, late in the evening broached the matter which lay 
heaviest on my mind. But again I was disappointed. Every 
one of the party had something to say about it ; but, beyond 
concurring in the opinion held by the waiter, they could give 
me no satisfaction. 

I refer to this family because they particularly pleased me, 
and were just such a whole-souled, hospitable, fun-loving 



4TO ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

house as has often attracted me in the writings of Charles 
Lever. The head of the house was a sufferer from gout, of 
course. The lady was matronly, courteous, and graceful; 
and the stalwart sons and fair daughter were most genial 
companions. The guests were gentlemen from Dublin to 
attend the fair on the next day. It was one of the most 
delightful evenings in my remembrance ; and I shall always 
bear, from this and other occasions in Ireland, a pleasant 
memory of its good-natured, kind-hearted, and hospitable 
people. 

They wanted me to stay in Galway till I saw an Irish 
funeral, and tried to describe to me the wild cry which the 
friends sent up on the occasion. But I went around among 
the people, and looked upon them ; but, as none of them 
appeared at all likely to die very soon, I concluded not to 
wait. They thought I should see a wake, and were very 
much surprised to learn that I had already participated in 
one in my own country. They didn't think the people 
would be so insane as to carry that practice into the new 
world ; which, in turn, rather opened my eyes ; for I thought 
wakes were popular with the Irish. But I learn that they 
are dying out here, as the upper classes and many of the 
clergy are opposed to them. 

But I was speaking of the waiter as being communicative. 
He is willing to lay himself out on almost any subject ; but 
the people of Tuam seemed to engross his most, earnest 
attention. He came from Dublin, and had been at this 
place about a fortnight. He understood when he came that 
it was a good berth for him ; but his experience illustrates a 
peculiar style of employing in the kingdom, to which, I 
think, I have previously alluded. 

When he got there, he found that his salary was to come 
from the guests, and that he was to be himself at the expense 
of washing the table-linen, or napkins, and of hiring any 
assistance he might require. As myself and the curate were 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 4I I 

the only guests at the thne, I thought that his chances looked 
mighty shm, — a view that he indorsed with vehement pro- 
fanity. 

But the fair was coming on^ and the house would be 
crowded with people ; and he conveyed, through the channel 
of various winks, and contortions of the face and fingers, 
that he would line his pockets on that occasion, and depart 
forthwith. 

He gave me to understand this several hundred times 
during the period I enjoyed his company. 

But he was down on Tuam and Tuam people, and never 
missed an opportunity for consigning them to foreign parts. 
I thought he would actually strangle, one evening, when I 
incidentally inquired if DubHn was as finely a laid out city as 
Tuam. 

The next morning was to be the first day of the fair. 
Early on Monday afternoon the buyers commenced to flock 
into the village. Every bedroom was doubled, trebled, and 
even quadrupled, in its resources. I was changed from my 
room to one which had five narrow beds crowded into it. 
But the curate took compassion upon me, and had an extra 
bed made up in his little room for my accommodation. He 
thought he was to keep his sitting-room. But, as night came 
on, so did Riley, the " boots," behind a mountain of bed- 
ding; and the little sitting-room was speedily metamor- 
phosed into accommodations for a half-dozen persons. 

Poor Riley ! All the afternoon his name resounded 
through the passages j and Riley, heated and perspiring, was 
everywhere in sight. 

" Sure, ma'am," I overheard him protest in a despairing 
voice to the head chambermaid, — " sure, ma'am, I'm not a 
crab, that I should be all legs." 

As I fell away into sleep at midnight, a stentorian voice 
came up the stairway, — 

" Riley, Riley ! Where are ye, man ? " 



412 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

And the next morning, at daylight, the voice of Riley was 
heard in the passage, trying to force his voice up to the next 
floor. 

" Mistress Clare ! Mistress Clare ! ye are wanted at wanst 
in the kitcheen." The next moment he came in with the 
hot water, and stopped to mention that he had not touched 
a foot to the bed the entire night. 

It was this morning of the fair that the landlord, a pleasant 
gentleman, came to me and said he had heard that I was 
inquiring about a man who had walked on his knees across 
the market-place. He had been a witness of the spectacle, 
and had made inquiries about it. The man had done it to 
fulfil the conditions of a penance; but he was a simple 
countryman, and did not know any better. 

That's so, undoubtedly ; but I couldn't help admiring the 
courage of a man who would thus publicly humihate himself 
in repentance. We are apt to admire in others those quali- 
ties of which we are destitute ourselves. 

It rained, or rather drizzled, all day of the first of the fair. 
The landlord directed me to the place where it was to be 
held, — "a beautiful green," he said. 

I worked my way out there at once. AH through the 
street were droves of sheep, with men, women, boys, and 
girls driving them. There were also sheep in pens mounted 
on wheels. This was the sheep day. I reached tl^e square 
all right, — an enclosure of some twenty acres. All over its 
face were flocks of sheep, barking dogs, hallooing men and 
boys, and cunning speculators. I got into the enclosure to 
the distance of about thirty feet, and there I stuck. It was 
a sea of mud, with islands of sheep, and shoals of humans. 
It may have been a green the day before ; but there was not 
a spear of grass observable in any direction, — all mudj mud, 
MUD! 

I went back to the hotel, paid my bill, clutched my valise 
with a nervous grasp, and started for the station. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 413 

And this is a fair, — a mere sale day. This was sheep- fair 
day, for the sale of sheep ; to-morrow cattle-fair day, for the 
sale of cattle ; and day after to-morrow pig-fair day, for the 
sale of pigs. 

Thus do traditions vanish, and thus does history shrivel. 



414 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 



OWNING A WHOLE GRAVEYARD. 



ON my way from Tuam to Limerick, I stopped over at 
Athenry for several hours. To look at the place, you 
would think it had not a population of five hundred ; but in 
1 87 1 it contained twelve hundred people. I understand it 
has not fallen away much since then. 

I carried a letter of introduction to a gentleman in 
Athenry, the manager of a mill. 

It seems as though you could walk all over Athenry, and 
touch every house, in a half-hour. It is composed mostly of 
one-story stone houses roofed with straw and earth. The 
village lies in low ground, and on this rainy afternoon it 
seemed to be fairly wallowing in mud. There was but one 
street, with branching lanes and courts, but little attempt at 
sidewalks, and still less at road pavements. Standing on the 
walls of its ruined castle, and looking about over the soggy, 
stony, and treeless surrounding country, one might be par- 
doned for inquiring how the Athenry people manage to exist. 
He would have certainly wondered how any man in good 
circumstances could come to reside there. Every feature 
of the place was depressing. 

But home is home wherever you may locate it. Beneath 
those sod roofs were love and patience, and envy and hope, 
and jawing and scolding, just the same as in the homes of 
affluence. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 415 

'Way off, thousands and thousands of miles from here, are 
hearts that turn night and day to thee, thou muddy and 
forlorn Athenry, and yearn for thee with all the intensity the 
human bosom is capable of. Athenry was once a walled 
city, and the home of a king. This was when Connaught 
was a country by itself, and the last king occupied the castle 
which is in ruins here now. 

He was the last king. Five hundred years ago he fought 
with the English, and was defeated and killed. That put an 
end to the glory of Athenry, and knocked the legs from the 
kingdom of Connaught. Part of the walls of the place still 
remain, and one of its gateways. Pieces of the wall appear 
here and there in field and garden, and even as a fraction 
of some house, the builder economizing it in the structure. 

Then there are the four walls of the castle, with a portion 
of the wall which was about that ; and even the indentation 
of the moat still remains. 

The castle was about forty feet square, and about fifty feet 
high. The first floor still remains, it being formed by the 
massive arches which make the cellar. My friend took me 
down into the cellar, the floor of which was scarcely four feet 
below the earth's surface. In addition to milling, he did a 
little in agricultural implements ; and he had several reapers 
stowed away here, the building being on ground he rented. 
I was glad to see these reapers here, it looked so natural. I 
never yet saw a deserted old building in a country village 
which did not have some sort of agricultural machinery 
stowed away within it. There had been hens here, too, in 
this castle of a king ; and they had roosted on those reapers, 
as was quite evident. Hens are very fond of new machinery 
and fancy sleighs for roosting-purposes. 

My companion showed me how he could put a roof on 
the walls at a small expense, and without interfering with them 
at all, which would give him the first floor for a store-room ; 
but the people of Athenry would not allow him. It was his 



41 6 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

own property, of course, as he had a lease of it; but he 
didn't care to run counter to the wishes of the community in 
which he was a resident. They didn't want to see the place 
desecrated ; and although the greater part of them did not 
have a whole suit of clothing to their backs, and rarely 
extended their bill of fare beyond potatoes and milk, still 
they took an interest in ruins, and knew the proprieties of 
things. 

Another interesting ruin in Athenry is that of a church. 
A large, fine church it was, several hundred years ago ; but 
only the walls remain, windowless and doorless. The church- 
yard is one mass of indistinguishable graves. 

The stones from the walls have fallen inside and outside 
of the structure ; and, between them and the briers, it was 
difficult to move around. 

Inside the walls were several very fine monuments, and 
many consisting simply of prostrate slabs, covered with a 
green slime, with inscriptions nearly worn away. The king 
himself, who died in defence of Athenry and Connaught, is 
supposed to lie here. Then there were the graves of several 
noblemen. Their tombs were, as I have said, elaborate. 
One of them was of beautiful Italian marble, exquisitely cut 
in that fair country. How oddly out of place it appeared 
within these crumbling walls, and among the fallen masonry, 
ordinary tombs, and flourishing brambles ! 

The Du Burgoies and Bermingham families, older than 
the eternal hills almost, lie buried in this neglected and 
dreary place, and appear to be proud of it. 

It is consecrated ground, you know; and, however dis- 
ordered and unkempt and rubbishy it may be, it is still a 
very desirable place to be buried in. 

But there is one thing I cannot understand. It had a 
walk about it, and a locked gate, which was opened to us by 
an old woman who possessed the key. To use a metaphor, 
she had drained the dregs of poverty, and was now picking 
her teeth. But she owned this place. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 417 

"Who owns this place?" I asked my companion ; for I 
ahvays Hke to vest romance with a little of the practical. 
But he didn't know. He had a ruin of his own, and you 
would have thought he would take an interest in those 
matters. And then Athenry is but a hamlet, and he an old 
resident, and yet not know who owned the only church 
ruin in his own place ! I began to feel uneasy. 

"Who has this place now, granny?" he inquired of the 
old woman as we were passing through the gate. 

" I do," she said. 

" Ay, you have the keeping of it ; but who owns it ? " 

" I do, I tell ye." 

I stepped around and took a look at her. She was bare- 
headed, and wore a patched gown and coarse shoes. My 
eyes protruded so far, that they really ached. And she, so 
poor that she did not have a whole gown to her back, was 
the sole possessor of a graveyard, a church, and the graves 
of the nobility ! She went on and explained how she got it. 
It was the property of a great family, and the family became 
broken up and scattered, and some neighbors took posses- 
sion, and in time became likewise scattered ; and then 
some one else tacked himself to it, but, finding precious Httle 
return from it, gave it up to one of her ancestors, and so'it 
came to her. 

Just think of the property this aged, crooning woman 
owned ! I became so bewildered by this information, that I 
was actually obliged to rub my head briskly to assure myself 
that I was really awake. But my companion didn't appear 
worked up at all ; and as for the proprietor of this singular 
wealth, she was not proud nor overbearing, but walked back 
of us as quietly as if she were not the owner of a single dead 
body, to say nothing of a church and a fine assortment of 
tombstones. She even accepted a shilling. 

I should like to see her inventory. 

When I became sufficiently composed to speak with a 



41 8 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

Steady voice, I asked this Athenry gentleman how such 
things could possibly exist. 

"Why, who would want the place? " he asked, in surprise. 
" I am sure I would not take it as a gift." 

" I know ; but just bear in mind that it is a graveyard, and 
ought to come under sanitary conditions. Besides, within 
repose the members of wealthy families ; and how is it they 
allow the possession of their burial-place to remain in the 
hands of a poverty-stricken old woman? " 

"Well," said he with provoking coolness, "I don't see 
any thing remarkable about it. She owns it ; but people can 
bury there. And as for the wealthy families, they are not 
here ; and I don't know as it makes much difference to them 
who holds the key to the gate." 

And that was really all there was of it ; but to this day I 
cannot fully comprehend it. Can you ? 

When we were inside the roofless sanctuary, the old lady 
opened a door recently erected, which enclosed a little cell. 
In there were a heap of human bones. Some of them were 
white, others were brown, and many were green. Some were 
whole ; but the most of them were decaying. I don't know 
how many people, or how many grades and conditions of 
life, were comprised in that pile. 

In a commercial point of view, there were, it is safe to 
say, about two dollars' worth of bones. They included shin- 
bones, thigh-bones, ribs, and skulls. They had been ex- 
humed in making fresh graves, and were put in this cell. 
The door was built to give a sort of security to the place. 
In several parts of the building I saw little piles of these 
ghastly mementos, unprotected by any door from the hand 
of man, or the devastation of the weather. One-half of a 
skull, looking like the part of a cocoanut-shell, was half full 
of rain-water, with an inch of settlings at the bottom, and 
a stray leaf from a tree floating on the surface. I wonder 
if it ever occurred to the owner of that skull, when he was 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 4I9 

going about Athenry, proudly displaying its contents, that, in 
the course of revolving years, it would catch rain-water and 
earth and flying leaves in a roofless church. 

And who can tell what other changes are in store for this 
shell to a once active, hopeful, human brain ? The time may 
come when some prudent housewife will take it to her home 
and have a nice handle put to it, and use it for baling up 
soft-soap. 

I left the village with genuine pleasure, I had seen so 
much of interest in it. Being a trifle behind time, I hurried 
back to the station, to make sure of my train. But there was 
an abundance of time. That was the occasion when the 
driver of the trap had to go back for the inspector, as re- 
lated in a former chapter. 

The two hours I put in at the little station, expecting 
every moment to leave, and not doing it, were hardly agreea- 
ble ; although I managed, with the aid of a pipe and turn- 
ing up my coat-collar (for it was a damp, drizzling, chilly 
day) , to work off the time. 

How slowly such time drags along ! and how anxiously we 
watch its progress, and feel a desire to get behind it, and 
give it a good push ! 

We have such an abundance of time, it is to be so many, 
many years before we shall be called hence, that we can 
afford to get out of patience with Time for not speeding 
faster. I have no doubt, that, if accurately reckoned up, we 
wish away fully one-half of our lives. 

But I am not going to sermonize, although abundantly 
competent to do so : I am merely going to tell you an inci- 
dent at the Athenry station. 



420 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER XLIX. 



STARTING FOR AMERICA. 



IT was a junction of three roads ; and, while we waited for 
our train, several others came and departed. One of 
them, which went to Galway, carried away two buxom girls 
of between twenty and twenty-five years of age. They had 
been standing on the platform with some friends, and were 
noticeable to strangers by their heavy frieze cloaks and scar- 
let skirts. They were the picturesque women of Galway, 
and had come over to Athenry to see off a few friends who 
were going to America. As the train was about to start, 
they took a convulsive farewell of the emigrants, and the 
emigrants took an equally convulsive farewell of them. The 
two Galwegians got into the train, and threw up the window, 
and put out their heads, and clasped the voyagers about 
their necks, and cried and sobbed as if their hearts were 
broken, until the guard and porters forced them apart, to per- 
mit the train to go on its way. Then, as it moved away, the 
women of Galway waved back their handkerchiefs, and sent 
up a wail that made the blood stand stiff about my heart. 
Those left behind, with one exception, gave an agonizing 
response. It was not a sharp cry of pain, nor was it a 
sobbing, but it seemed to be a melting of one into the 
other, and altogether too pathetic to fool about with a 
description. The exception was a young girl of some six- 
teen years, a neighbor undoubtedly, who, not liking to cry 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 42 1 

before so many strangers, laughed instead, and tried to hide 
the offence beneath the hght shawl she had wrapped about 
her head. 

The party left on the platform by the departure of this 
train were an old man, his two sons (one about thirty, and 
the other eighteen years of age), the wife of the older, two 
daughters, and the neighboring girl with the light shawl. 
The older son and his wife, and two young sisters, were 
going to America, — four out of a family of six. The son 
was a stout young man, homely dressed : his wife had no 
bonnet, but made the cape of her cloak«answer the purpose. 
But the young sisters were clothed in bright red-and-yellow 
shawls, which made up in color what they lacked in warmth, 
and blue bonnets trimmed copiously with yellow flowers. 
Poor girls ! they were going to a great country from Athenry, 
and that pride which is peculiar to and pardonable in their 
sex could not bear that Athenry should be meanly thought 
of in foreign lands. And so the bright colors and the colos- 
sal yellow flowers were going to America by way of a steer- 
age passage ; and I thought of that, and the consequent 
trailing of the plumes in the dark hold of a tossing vessel ; 
and I did wish that somebody could have told them all 
about it before they made their purchases. 

They were to take the train with myself going to Limer- 
ick. As the time came for their getting aboard, the grief of 
both parties became intense. They clasped each other 
to their breasts, and cried most pitifully. Going away to 
America, going thousands of miles apart, — a family that had 
grown up together for years with never a thought of sepa- 
ration. It was hard all around ; but it was the hardest upon 
the one the least able to bear it, — the poor old man, so poor 
and thin, that it seemed as if the sharp air would cut through 
him. But he did not hft up his voice : he simply kept walk- 
ing about, and presssing his hands tightly together. His 



422 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

was not pain : it was simply a dull, dead despair. I won- 
dered if he thought of the dances and froKcs where he won 
the girl who bore him these children, who grew wan and thin 
with him, and finally sank to her rest; and if he thought of 
them, and then looked on this scene, which was the bitter 
climax of his life's aspirations and ambitions, what must be 
the sensations under which his brain throbbed ? But what 
is this parting, with its excitement, to the feelings which will 
come to them when the dear old land lies thousands of 
miles away? And what is this parting, with its hurry and 
busde, to those leit behind, to the desolation which will 
meet them at the threshold of the broken home ? Perhaps 
the old man is thinking of this, and can vividly see the 
disordered room, the fragments of the last and almost 
untouched meal, the vacant chair, and that indescribable 
vacuum which awaits his return from the station. 

He may have been thinking of this when he drew back 
from the others, and stood at the corner of the station-build- 
ing, as the train moved away, and wrung his hands in such 
an agony of distress, that it drowned the wail of the others, 
and left only that white, distorted face reflected upon the 
mind. 

" Father, father ! " shouted the first-born in a broken 
voice, " all that I ask of ye is that ye live till I come back. 
That's just what I ask of ye," he continued, with a feeble 
attempt to be exultant. 

Come back ? Of course. It is not the going away that 
the departing care to dwell upon, except in their very secret 
thoughts : it is of the coming back that they talk ; it is the 
coming back to which they strive hopefully but hopelessly 
to bring the attention of the unfortunately left behind. 

But the old man did not hear it. He made no response : 
no cry escaped him. " As a sheep before her shearers is 
dumb, so he opened not his mouth." 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 423 

God help him, and all fathers and mothers in this land — 
the land of parting — who are called upon to give up their 
hearts' treasures, to have their souls riven with pain on the 
very verge of the grave ! Theirs is a grief for which Nature 
can furnish no antidote,— the dry grief of despair. 



424 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER L. 



A TREATISE ON LIMERICK. 



WE reached Limerick late in the evening ; and I got 
down there to stay over one day to look at the 
place. I was very much attached to Limerick through the 
medium of one of Moore's songs. I forget the name ; but 
one line made such an impression upon me, that I remember 
it well. It was, — 

" Oh ! I'm the boy from Limerick." 

That is the reason that I stopped at Limerick. I took 
such an interest in the young fellow, that I wanted to see the 
place where he hung out, — his place of abode, as it were. 

I was pleased with Limerick, and delighted with its hotel. 
The city is composed of two distinct parts, — the old and 
the new. There has been no particular effort to improve 
the old city, the Limerickers preferring to lay out their mon- 
ey in building anew : consequently they have plenty of good 
city to take friends over, and create a good impression. In 
the new city the principal street is George, — a straight, broad 
avenue, with many handsome stores. And speaking of their 
stores reminds me, that, since being in Ireland, I have been 
much interested and amused by the peculiar contrasts pre- 
sented at the dry-goods establishments. For instance, take 
the store opposite the hotel. It has a massive front of plate 
glass, is high in ceiling, finely furnished, and attractively 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 425 

arranged. Into this store will pass a lady in satin and seal- 
skin. " Her carriage stands at the door. There goes in one 
who is bare-headed, and even bare-footed ; and, if you should 
enter yourself, you will find both trading at the same coun- 
ter, and both waited on by nobby clerks with hair parted in 
the middle. 

Foster Green, at Belfast, with his splendid establishment, 
sells groceries as cheap as the homeliest place on the back- 
est of back-streets ; and so the bare-footed and bare-headed 
like to trade there. And I imagine from that, and from see- 
ing the lower classes flock in here and similar places, that 
the dry-goods establishments are conducted on the same 
principle. It is much difl"erent in our country, where the 
rent is allowed to influence the price, and where first-class 
stores do not care to bicker with third-class customers, nor 
have them and their old and soiled clothing in the place. 

In every nation that I know any thing about, there is a 
class of people who wifl fight the price of a dealer inch by 
inch. I don't know that the Irish have more of this element 
than any other country ; but they are certainly well cursed 
with it, and get full credit for what they have, if not more. 
Knowing this, I have enjoyed seeing one of these Irish men 
or women wrangle with his or her own countrymen. At a 
store in Tuam, an old woman said to the dealer, of whom shQ 
had asked the price of tea, — 

" Musha, Mr. Hogan, ye have a heart of stone." 
" Do you think I could be giving ye the tea after paying 
my money for it? " he demanded with some indignation. 

" We'll let ye alone for the giving. Mister Hogan. Sure, 
any sack would do that come here for free male," retorted 
the old hag with a chuckle. 

" Any one to hear ye talk. Mistress Quinn," said the exas- 
perated grocer, " would think that good tea was clover, that 
might be had for the plucking." 

"An' I'm not sure that it's not clover," was the bold 
retort. This was the opportunity to leave, and I left. 



426 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW, 

It is Greek meeting Greek ; and anybody who may have 
clerked in a Yankee grocery would enjoy it as I do. 

The old part of Limerick is decidedly dilapidated. Why, 
many of its crazy tenements are actually falling down ; and 
ivy, which is not a proud plant, is growing over the broken 
walls. Many of the streets are narrow, crooked, dirty, and 
bad-smelling. In going through one of them, I saw an old 
man cobbling shoes. He was seated on a stool, with his back 
against a building. The nails and general paraphernalia of 
his trade were in a little box on the pavement by him. A bit 
of bagging stretched on two sticks set on the windward side 
of him to protect him from its inclemency. This shelter was 
about twenty inches square, and must have afforded a great 
deal of comfort. He was a very old man, but busy. I asked 
him how much rent he paid. He said that he occupied the 
pavement without cost ; and, in answer to another question, 
thought he was safe in placing the figure of his average earn- 
ings at a shilling a day. When it rained very hard, he put 
his place of business under his arm, and scudded around 
into an adjoining area. 

I gave him a few particulars about the humble origin of 
Horace Greeley, Franklin, and Blind Tom, and then left him 
to peg away. 

The old town contains, in addition to this cobbler, the old 
cathedral and a fortified castle, 

I didn't go into the old cathedral. I went into the yard, 
and incurred the dislike of the keeper by incidentally ob- 
serving that the church was altogether too modem for my 
cultivated tastes. 

It has a chime of eight bells. The waiter at the hotel 
told me an incident in connection therewith. Many centu- 
ries ago, a wealthy and pious Italian had eight bells cast for 
a church in Rome. They were vested by some saint with 
a peculiar sweet tone which no mechanical skill could ap- 
proach. But wars came upon Italy, and the church was 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 42/ 

robbed of its beautiful bells. The wealthy and pious Italian 
felt inconsolable over the loss. He sold his property at auc- 
tion, neglected to shave and to change his linen, and wan- 
dered forth upon the world in quest of the beloved chimes. 
Years after, in passing up the Shannon on a vessel, prome- 
nading the deck, and brooding over his great loss, the bells 
in the steeple of Limerick Cathedral sounded forth in the 
evening chimes. The bells were brought from Italy by some 
filibuster, and they were the very bells which this wanderer 
had sacrificed home and pleasure to see. At their first sound 
he threw up his arms, and fell dead of broken heart upon the 
deck. This was the waiter's story ; and, when he ceased, he 
lifted the napkin, and brushed a tear from his eye. A stiff- 
looking gentleman, whom I judged to be a lawyer, was sit- 
ting opposite me, but apparently took no interest in the 
narrative until its conclusion. Then he started up, and 
said, — 

" Do I understand you to say that the party from Italy 
fell dead?" 

" Yes, sir," said the waiter with a sigh. 

"Was. — was there an inquest? " 

"A — a wha — that is — I mean — I'm sure I don't know, 
sir," spluttered the narrator in bewilderment. 

"Then, sir," said the stiff gentleman with some severity, 
" how are you able to state with any confidence that the 
deceased met his death from a broken heart, in the absence 
of any evidence that a thorough investigation into the causes 
of his untimely death had been conducted before proper 
authorities?" 

The waiter bolted at once. 

As for the Shannon, I hardly know what to say of it. It 
is a river, a swift-rolling river, whose waters are of that 
color attained by standing water in slaughter-house yards ; 
and that is the most graphic description of the Shannon that 
I have yet seen. 



428 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

There are a number of manufactures in Limerick ; but the 
most important is the making of lace. I judge this merely 
from the fact that the visitor is waylaid every few yards on 
the street by a bare-footed woman, and importuned to buy a 
lace handkerchief which she extends in her hand. 

I met them outside the door of the hotel, and even in the 
hall. One of them followed me into the coffee-room. This 
was too much. I seized a carving-knife, and, brandishing it 
above my head as I had seen people do in Sunday-school 
books, I shouted, — 

" Woman ! one step nearer with that rag, and I'll plunge 
this blade into your detestable body ! " 

She sighed, and turned away, saying, " An' such a purty 
nose as he has ! " 

"Woman," said I in a softened voice, — for suffering almost 
melts me, — " here's a shilling." 

At the station, on my departure, there were a half-dozen 
of them, each armed with a lace handkerchief, and each 
determined to sell it. I can't imagine any thing that will 
tend to awaken a man's interest in the manufacture of lace 
as much as, in getting out of a train in a hurry to secure a 
glass of ale, to run against a lace-seller who is bound to dis- 
pose of a handkerchief. I saw a man do that as I waited 
for my train. He was a very heavy man. The woman put 
up her hand at first to show him the handkerchief; but, learn- 
ing his momentum as if by inspiration, she at once threw up 
both hands to save herself; but it was too late. He caught 
one of her hands on his face ; the nails thereof ploughed 
across his nose and forehead : the other caught him in the 
pit of the stomach. 

In that shape they both went off the platform, and down 
on the rails. The porters jumped after them at once ; but 
the woman got on her feet ahead of them, and, rubbing her 
head, moved away in blank astonishment. The old gentle- 
man was helped upon the platform, but with great difficulty, 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 429 

as he thought he had been struck by an express-tram, and 
could hardly realize that both of his legs had not been taken 
off. When he did get fairly up, and learned what had really 
happened, and that it was too late to get the ale, a mighty 
revulsion of feeling suddenly set in, and he looked around 
for that woman with a cold-blooded ferocity that was dread- 
ful to contemplate. 

Five minutes later, I was on my way to Killarnfey. 



430 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER LI. 

BLASPHEMING MENDICANTS. 

FROM Limerick the train went to Charleyville, about 
forty miles, where we waited an hour for the Dubhn 
train. It was a cold wait, as Charleyville is on a plain, and 
the station is in an exposed place, where the wind swept 
across it without hinderance. But I was expecting my 
friend the major, whose company I enjoyed at Belfast ; and 
so I walked briskly up and down the platform, and destroyed 
two cigars with comparative ease. 

At last the Dublin train came in, and with it the major, 
who was going with me to Killarney. He hadn't seen the 
lakes in ten years, and longed for a sight of what he claimed 
to be one of the most beautiful spots on the face of the 
globe. 

"Faith, old man," he observed, rubbing his shoulder after 
we had wrung each other by the hand, " it was my intention 
to twist your arm from its socket ; but I believe you have 
forestalled me." # 

The Dublin train took us to Mallow, where it left us, and 
pursued its way to Cork. At Mallow we changed for Killar- 
ney, which place we reached at nine o'clock in the evening. 

The station at Killarney is an arch of iron and glass, — a 
style so common in Europe. At the end was a transparency 
over an opening, with the words " Railway Hotel " embla- 
zoned thereon. We went into that opening; and it led 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 43 1 

through a passage-way, covered with a bewildering mass of 
ivy, to the hostelry, — a rather new feature in hotel economy. 

There is one thing that can be said of all pictures of pre- 
tentious buildings in Britain, — they do not overrun the mark. 
In our case, — a people superficial and money- making, — our 
prints invariably flatter. I have seen pictures of Western 
hotels that led me to believe they were imposing structures, 
when they proved to be merely catch-trap affairs, put up 
cheaply of wood, with a great deal of coarse gingerbread- 
work to them. The picture I saw of the Killarney hotel 
presented a jail-looking building that was not inviting ; but 
relying on the advice of a Scotch commercial, that station 
hotels were generally the best, I went to it. It is a fine- 
looking hotel, and is surrounded by extensive grounds, which 
have been arranged with great care ; and the building itself 
is supplied with every convenience for travellers. I appre- 
ciated it thoroughly ; although, since getting away from Con- 
naught, I have had no trouble in this respect. 

The next morning, on looking out of the coffee-room win- 
dow, I saw, in the opening to the ivy passage, half a dozen 
cut-throats. I never saw them before ; but I knew who they 
were, and what they were after. They were watching the 
hotel-door, but pretending not to. They were guides in 
search of a job. 

The major and I ordered a jaunting-car with driver, and 
started out to make a tour of the lakes. 

I don't understand why these lakes are called Killarney. 
But they are called so only by foreigners and the proprietors 
of panoramas. Their names are respectively Lough Leane, 
Lake Muckross, and Upper Lake. The first-named is fre- 
quently called by the people here the Lower Lake. It is 
ten times as large as Muckross, or the Middle Lake ; and 
that is nearly a third larger than the Upper. The first two 
are nearly together, being separated by a sharp neck of land 
and an island. The Upper Lake is some two miles from 



432 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

Muckross, but connected with it. I will freely admit that 
Killarney is a pretty name, and far more euphonious than the 
others ; but, when any one who possesses a well nose has 
been through the village of Killarney, he does not see the 
propriety of the -association. The lakes, with their foliage- 
lined shores, beautiful private parks, and bold mountains, are 
one of the finest bits of scenery ; but the village ! 

Killarney boasts five thousand population ; and how poor 
it is, is best conveyed by the statistics of the workhouse, 
which has four hundred paupers. If you know of any place 
the size of Killarney which has an equal number of profes- 
sional paupers, I hope you will let me know, that I may 
avoid it. Besides all these paupers in the workhouse, there 
are a number of beggars in the town ; and still, in addition, 
there are a host of swindlers in bog jewelry, and millions of 
" touters," so called because they solicit money for indiffer- 
ent services, and drive you mad by their importunities. 
Killarney has one main street in the shape of a tri-square. 
At one point is the Protestant church, and at the other is the 
Catholic cathedral. Then there is a Presbyterian church at 
the angle. Off from this main street are numerous little 
stunted courts and thickly-tenanted lanes. Although a dirty 
and a dilapidated town, yet Killarney is not such a place as 
Tuam. Whether this is because of the beautiful scenery 
about it, or that its main street is broader and more lively 
than that of Tuam, I cannot decide ; but it is certainly more 
endurable. 

The village is about a mile and a half from the nearest 
point of Lough Leane. We do not pass through it in going 
to the lakes, but took it in on coming back. We had a 
jaunting-car. The major made the driver sit on the box ; 
and he took one side, and I the other ; and, sitting well back, 
we nearly faced each other, and had a good view of the mid- 
dle seam in the back of the driver's coat — and the rest of 
the country. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 433 

The moment we took our seats, the guides pounced down 
on us. The major had explained, before starting, that we 
should not want these people ; and so, when they applied, I 
told them that I was on my way to see a sick friend, but 
that my companion was going to see the lakes. They at 
once applied to him. He held up his hand to his ear, to 
signify that he was deficient in hearing. 

" He is somewhat deaf," I said : " you will have to speak 
loud." 

They raised their voices ; but still he could not catch their 
sentiment. They jumped up on higher notes ; but they did 
not reach him, although he exhibited the liveliest anxiety to 
learn what they were driving at. They made a still greater 
effort, but without success : whereupon all but one, having 
reached the highest point, retired, mopping their foreheads, 
and looking very much distressed. This one got upon the 
seat beside the major, and, putting both hands to his mouth 
to concentrate his voice, fairly bellowed with all his might. 
But it had no effect on the major. He put his hand up to 
his ear again, and shook his head in a very desponding 
manner. 

" Great Heaven ! " said the unhappy guide as he got 
down and moved off. 

At the toll-gate, a few rods farther on, we met a broad-shoul- 
dered vagrant, reeking in rags and dirt, and bloated with 
drink. He came up on one side of the trap as the toll- 
keeper approached the other. The major looked gravely 
from one to the other, and said, — 

" Which of you keeps this gate ? " The gate-keeper's 
face flushed scarlet ; and he held out his hand, and said that 
he was the proper party to receive the toll. 

When we got away, the major said, " That was rather hard 
on the gate-man ; but I intended it for him. Had he been 
an honest man, he would not have allowed that bundle of 
mud and bad whiskey to hang about the gate, annoying trav- 



434 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

ellers for money. And I'm thinking we three will not meet 
again at that place." 

We drove along a road which had high stone walls on each 
side, with trees overhanging them. We were approaching 
the lakes, and getting among the premises of men of prop- 
erty. One of the two largest property-owners in the neigh- 
borhood is a member of Parliament, named Herbert. He 
possesses property skirting the three lakes, and at the larger 
has his residence and extensive park. In the park is the 
famous Muckross Abbey, lying near to the water. Mr. Her- 
bert is properly located in Parliament. He is politic enough 
to see that people want to go over the grounds, and that he 
ought to gratify them ; but at the same time he is sufficiently 
a statesman to reaHze that a shiUing from each is a very good 
thing for rainy weather : so he has a system of tickets simi- 
lar to those used on the railways here. It is cheap and sen- 
sible ; but it reads oddly. 

At the first gate a woman came from the porter's lodge, and 
let us in on the payment of a shilling each. But, before she 
came up, another woman in the road, with a child in her 
arms, made for us. 

"For the love of a good God, gintlemin," she said, "give 
me a penny for bread for me hungering children ! " 

There was no response. 

" O gintlemin ! ye wadn't see us starve before your very 
eyes," she whined. " The tinder mercies of God follow ye, 
good gintlemin ! " 

She hesitated. 

" Come," said the major encouragingly, " there is another 
remark. Out with it." 

Whereupon she said, — 

" Sure a copper is nothing to such as you ; but it waud kape 
the babbies from sooferin. Plaze, for the love of God, have 
mercy on us ! " 

The major threw her a coin, and the driver started on ; but 
my companion stopped him. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 435 

And then the miserable wretch in the road, tainting the 
pure air with bad rum and digestion at every breath, poured 
into us a volley of blessings, mumbling them over so swiftly 
as to be hardly distinguishable. But I have heard the same 
thing so often, that no amount of disguise can hide it from 
me. Here it is : — 

" Ayh, God bliss you, gintlemin ! God bliss you a thou- 
sand times ! An' long life to your honors ! and may ye niver 
want for a blissid thing in life ! The Holy Virgin protict you 
an' kape you ! God bliss you ! Holy angels kape you ! 
Long life to you, an' phnty of happiness ! God bhss you for- 
iver ! " 

"Isn't that awful? "said the major after she was done. 
" And she is only one of thousands, — dirty wretches, beg- 
ging when everybody else is at work, and drinking and fight- 
ing when other people are abed. I rarely give a penny to 
one of them, and think it a harm to put any thing in their 
hands that will procure them their enemy ; but I thought I 
would try that sixpence on her, praying that. she might, in a 
fit of temporary aberration, invest it in soap." 

We each gave the gate-woman a shilHng, and received, in 
return, a sectional ticket. One part of it the woman tore off 
and retained : the other piece we kept. It signified on the 
face of it that it was an admission to Mr. Herbert's grounds, 
including Muckross-Abbey ruins, and must be given up at 
the gate of egress. Inside the grounds we drove along a 
smooth road winding along the shore of the lake, bordered 
by turf, and flanked by trees. It was a very beautiful scene, 
quiet, lovely, and enchanting. The autumnal tints were 
touching the foliage. Dark-brown, gray, and various shades 
of yellow abounded on each side ; but the flaming maple was 
absent. It needed only that to make of this early October 
mom a genuine Indian-summer day. There were no objects 
of interest along the drive, except those of Nature's con- 
struction. It was simply a park of smooth turf, varying 



43^ ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

glimpses of the lake, and distant mountains, with soft, heal- 
ing sunshine upon the earth, and a blue sky above, with 
fleecy white clouds tumbhng lazily about in its space. None 
of us said a word as the car rolled quietly along. Even the 
driver buttoned his upper lip. 

Ten minutes on this delicious way brought us to a clump 
of trees, with the gray walls of a ruin showing through the 
openings. This was Muckross Abbey. The driver drove 
around to a gate, as a paling surrounded the building and 
the adjacent grounds, which were used for burial. 

My first view of the abbey was a sort of disappointment, 
perhaps by reason of the approach, which showed me but 
a shattered end of the building, from ground higher than 
its first floor ; while a lofty tree concealed the tower. I was 
opposite the chancel-window (bare of glass, of course), with 
its skeleton spandrels casting shadows on the grass where I 
stood. All about it was a mass of shining ivy. In fact, all 
this end-wall, with portions of the side-walls and most -of the 
massive tower, concealed their deformity beneath the friendly 
oflices of the beautiful ivy. We paused a moment to glance 
at the exterior of the walls, and then passed into the build- 
ing through a low door. 

Muckross Abbey and Church were founded in the fifteenth 
century. As an abbey, it was a place of residence for the 
members of the order which founded it ; and consequently 
we find a dining-room, kitchen, and sleeping-apartments with- 
in the walls. 

Any one who goes over this or a similar place, and looks at 
its bleak walls, cold, cheerless stone floors, dreary low ceil- 
ings, and hampered rooms, can scarcely conceive how human 
beings, with human warmth, and human love of the bright 
and cheerful, could live a monastic life, especially in those 
back centuries, when ignorance and poverty were the com- 
mon heritage of the masses. That those people did good, 
there is no doubt ; but that they could have greatly multiplied 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 437 

their successes by carrying their holiness and self-denial into 
the world is equally certain. 

In the panoramas of the lakes the abbey is represented in 
its completed state, with illuminated windows and the singing 
of vespers. The first panorama of Killarney I witnessed 
was under the auspices of a friend, who loaned me a shilling 
to do it with. The exhibition made such an impression upon 
me as to soften my heart, and ennoble my nature ; but it 
had no such effect upon him. He was of a low and grovel- 
ling nature, and for years after used to dun me for that shil- 
ling. 

But the most interesting sight to me in connection with 
Muckross Abbey and Church was a funeral, which entered 
the ground as we came out into the yard. It was just as 
well now that I did not wait in Tuam to witness the specta- 
cle ; for the guide had been telling us that only hereabouts, 
and in some portions of Connaught, were the primitive cus- 
toms in burial kept up. They were growing less frequent 
here, and would probably pass away entirely with this cen- 
tury. 

The funeral was of a young man, with no nearer relatives 
than an aunt and several cousins. There are no people so 
prolific in cousins as the Irish. That is about the only rela- 
tive they lay themselves out on, and in their production they 
beat the world. 

Four men brought the coffin into that portion of the 
grounds already serrated with unmarked graves. They set 
it down on the ground, and I looked about for the grave ; 
but there was not a bit of fresh-turned earth in sight. The 
women got together, looking at the coffin, which was stained 
black to make it all the more oppressive and awful, and wept 
silently. The men also gathered in a knot by themselves, 
and divided their attention between the coffin and ourselves ; 
hardly knowing, perhaps, which to admire most. Then two 
of the men took off" their coats, and marked out a spot on 



43S England from a back-window. 

the turf the size of the coffin, and straightway set to work 
to dig the grave. This was a custom petuHar to Killarney, 
and was not due to the neghgence of the sexton or under- 
taker. The body is first brought to the place of burial, and 
then the grave is dug. The work went forward rapidly, as 
the earth was soft and yielding. All the while it progressed, 
the aunt and cousins of the deceased swayed their bodies, 
and emitted a moaning sound, which the other women either 
encouraged by joining, or attempted to abate by simple sym- 
pathy. 

On the completion of the opening, the body was lowered 
into it, there being no service at the grave, as the deceased 
was poor, the caretaker explained ; and the earth was imme- 
diately thrown in. At the first shovelful the relatives sent 
up a cry, which by its suddenness startled me. It was just 
such a sound as came from the people at Athenry ; but it 
lacked that subtle agony. It came from an aunt and cousins, 
and not from brothers and sisters torn apart. It came from 
temporary excitement, and was due to the occasion, and was 
not from hearts genuinely lacerated. I stood it with perfect 
composure. 

But, as the grave filled up, those in attendance who had 
graves in the same lot repaired to them ; and, as they reached 
them, they gave utterance to the same wail, only in increased 
intensity. Some of them threw themselves upon the graves ; 
others swayed above them, and wrung their hands ; still 
others fell on their knees, and threw their hands above their 
heads ; while up among the trees, and through the park, 
and over the water, sounded the waiHng cry. 

It was no fit place for disinterested strangers ; and the 
major and I left the grounds, and, mounting the car, drove 
away. 

We passed along another smooth road, which wound under 
noble trees, and by copse after copse of blackthorn ; and still 
we were in Mr. Herbert's private grounds. Pretty soon we 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 439 

reached an angle of a road which approached a magnificent 
lawn ; and across it we got a good view of his modern resi- 
dence, built in the Elizabethan style, but hardly so imposing 
as I had expected from a man of his great wealth. 



AAO ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER LIL 



SCENERY AND LIES. 



AFTER a look at the mansion we dipped back among 
the trees again, and followed the road through many 
romantic spots to the Dinish Island. On Dinish Island is a 
cottage erected by Mr. Herbert for the rest and refreshment 
of tourists. 

I went round to the back of the house, where was the 
kitchen-door, and was cordially entertained by three small 
dogs, which dashed through the open doorway, and came 
against my legs with such strength of hospitality as to nearly 
throw me off my feet. 

Right behind them appeared a buxom woman, with her 
bare arms streaked with suds. 

" Good-momin' to your honor," she said : " I hope I see 
you well." And without giving me opportunity to explain, 
that, in spite of a little touch of rheumatism in my left leg, 
I was in a tolerable state of health, she straightway put one 
hand up to her mouth in imitation of a trumpet, and, point- 
ing this instrument toward a point in the heavens, shouted 
three times in stentorian tones, "John !" 

At the conclusion of the third cry, John, who was intro- 
duced to me as her husband, made his appearance. 

Across the channel which separates Dinish Island from 
the mainland is an old bridge ; an ancient bridge, I should 
say. The bridge is formed of two rude arches, and is 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 44I 

scarcely less rugged than its surroundings. From the porch 
of the cottage we had a good view of it ; also of the seeth- 
ing, boihng, angry waters which rushed over the rocks be- 
neath it. 

" Shooting " the weir is a performance which brings many 
tourists to this cottage, and the keeper of it is the head ar- 
tillery-man. A party — consisting of a fat woman, a lean man, 
and a parasol — were enjoying this target-excursion. When 
the boat struck the eddies, the boatman tended alone to the 
helm. The current itself was sufficiently rapid to whiz the 
boat through ; and, had the vessel lost its head for an instant, 
a capsize, with fatal results, would have immediately followed. 
But the boat came through gallantly, the fat lady and her 
attenuated husband attesting their enjoyment of the feat by 
convulsively clutching each other, and shrieking at the ex- 
treme top of their respective voices. 

John pressed us to try the experiment, and John's wife 
added her persuasive eloquence ; but we were firm in our re- 
fusal. However, we cheered their hearts by buying a couple 
of bushels of photographs. 

Crossing Brickeen Island, we had a grand view of the 
Lough of Leane, with its expanse of waters, many islands, 
and quiet shores, with background of mountainous range. 
One of its islands is the Ross, with a castle and a copper 
mine ; another is the Innisfallen, where are the ruins of an 
abbey. I thought at first I would not visit it, but changed 
my mind on the representation of the driver. He told us a 
legend. He said, that, before the time of Muckross Abbey, 
there stood a church on Innisfallen. Attached to it was a 
devout friar, who was much given to prayer. He used to 
retire to a rock in a secluded part of the island when spe- 
cially meditative. On one of these occasions he fell asleep, 
and slept for two hundred years. 

" How long? " asked the major impetuously. 

"Two hundred years, sir," repeated the driver. 



442 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

" Hear that, Bailey ! " said the major with a burst of 
pride. " That was an Irishman that slept two hundred years 
at a single jump. And, by my soul, I'll wager the best bottle 
Dunville ever turned out that our excellent and very reliable 
friend, the driver here, will do the same thing any day. 
Will you not, my man? " 

The driver shook his head, and tried to look pleasant. 

"What's that?" exclaimed the major. "Come now, 
driver, you are too modest ; but it's a national failing. But 
get you down, and take the rock yonder for a pillow, and I'll 
hold your beast and time you. Just try ten or fifteen years, 
to show the gentleman from America what we can do in 
Ireland." 

The driver stared at the major and at me, and looked 
warm and uncomfortable. 

" Go on with your story, then," said the major petulantly 
after a pause. "You are mighty disobliging, I must say." 

" But," protested the unhappy Jehu, " the friar was a holy 
man." 

" And aren't you a holy man too ? If you deny that, it 
is a queerer driver you are than I think, and the first in 
my life that I knew to turn tail to the impeachment. But 
get along with the legend." 

Thus abjured, the driver proceeded with his narrative. 

The friar slept there on his knees for two hundred years ; 
and then he awoke, and returned to the abbey. But every 
thing was strange to him. Two centuries had removed 
many of the shrubs, and replaced them with those of differ- 
ent kinds. Saplings had sprung into mighty oaks ; and huge 
trunks had fallen away, and disappeared. New forms moved 
about the temple, and new faces looked upon him with sur- 
prised glances. He called in vain for his old companions. 
Generations ago they had died, and even their ashes were 
not. 

Dismayed, discouraged, and brokeTi-hearted, he retired 
to the place of his devotions, and there died. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 443 

I asked the driver if he beHeved this story ; and he said 
nobody could deny it, as the prints of the man's knees were 
still to be seen on the rock. 

"But how do you know the man is dead?" asked the 
major. 

" They found him, sir, the next day." 

"And so he slept on that little island for two hundred 
years, and no one knew it, although he may have snored 
like a maiden aunt ; but he was scarcely dead four and twenty 
hours when they all found it out. Of course it is so," con- 
tinued the major, as if communing with himself, " because, 
aren't the prints of his knees in the stone? But it shows 
that the organ of smell is much superior to both the organs 
of hearing and seeing." 

There was still another legend. When we were driving 
along the upper lake, the smaller of the three, there was a 
long line of rocks observable on the opposite shore. On 
the face of one of them was a very good image, in white 
moss or mould or stain, of a roe. The driver directed our 
attention to this. He said that every seven years an extinct 
chieftain, called the O'Donogue, mounted a white horse, 
and chased the roe through the waters of the lake. All 
night long he kept up the pursuit ; but at daybreak the spot 
returned to the rock, and the horse and its rider disappeared 
beneath the waters. He chased the roe to secure the peace 
of his soul, that desirable . condition depending upon the 
capture of the animal. Many a man, especially on the 
Mississippi, and in the early days of California, laid all his 
wealth on a spot. The driver believed this story. I gave 
him a postage -stamp, with the understanding that he would 
send me the particulars when the O'Donogue caught the 
roe. 

The drive by Muckross and Upper Lakes was certainly 
grand. The road wound beneath rocky precipices, about 
the base of enormous mountains, along the placid water. 



444 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

ado\Mi wooded glades, and by park lands. We could get 
glimpses of water and meadow, and various tinted rocks, 
and many- colored foliage. Every little while on the road we 
were obliged to turn out, or to halt, to permit a drove of Irish 
cattle to pass by. The genuine Highland cow is low and 
broad, with a woolly coat, and large, fine eyes : the Irish 
cow is very small, with delicate horns, and a patient, forgiv- 
ing eye. 

These cows, and their quiet shock- headed drivers, added a 
pleasant domestic feature to the beauty of the scene. Cows 
are always comforting to look upon, if your parents do not 
own them and make you do the churning. 

We were pausing to allow one of these droves to go by, 
when a woman, with a small shawl thrown over her shoulders, 
and leading a very fat and red-faced boy by the hand, came 
up to us, and said, — 

" For the tinder mercy of a good God, give a poor widdy 
a few coppers for bread ! " 

The major looked blankly at her, and shook his head, 
and said, — 

" Parlez-vous Anglice? " 

And then shook his head again, as if he was in a very bad 
way. 

The unfortunate widow turned to me ; but I was a for- 
eigner, and remembered it in time to save myself. 

Then she turned away with a heavy sigh, saying, — 

" The divil fly away wid ye, ye gibbering furriners ! " 

And we moved on. A short distance ahead, the driver 
drew up at a gate in a stone wall, close to which was a little 
but pleasant-looking cottage, occupied by Mr. Herbert's 
game-keeper. His wife came and let us into the enclosure 
by the payment of a fee, and we followed a little path which 
ran along a swift-moving brook and up a mountain. This 
was Tore Mountain, and the stream descending it made the 
Tore Cascade. We climbed half way up the hill, and came 
out on a ledge nearly level with the top of the cascade. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW, 445 

The roar of the descending torrent made conversation 
difficult. The water of the Httle brook came pouring 
over the rocks Hke a whirlwind, breaking itself into hun- 
dreds of streams, and lashing itself into a fury of ecstasy. 
It was drunk, — crazy drunk. It roared and moaned, and 
fell down and jumped up, and rolled over from rock to rock. 
It was in an ecstasy of blind drunkenness, and it made me 
dizzy and intemperate to look upon it. We took the path 
again, and mounted up still higher, and then looked down 
on the foaming cascade, and listened to its fury, which was 
now tempered into a sullen roar. 

Then we looked off toward the lakes, and there they lay 
spread out before us in the mellow sunshine like a plain of 
silver dotted with emeralds. Beautiful, beautiful, beyond all 
words ! 

Well, we went down, and passed through the gate again. 
The car was drawn up on the opposite side of the road ; 
which was purposely done by the driver, I imagine, to give 
opportunity for certain people to attack us. There were two 
old women, each with a pail half full of milk, and a bowl 
swimming around on the top ; and in the other hand was a 
bottle. So this was the poteen and goat's milk I had 
heard of. Then there were two boys selling ferns and Kil- 
larney myrtle, and three young women with bog-oak jewelry 
in market-baskets ; and then there were a couple of able- 
bodied men with photographs. 

The poteen ladies came upon us at once. I panted 
after the whiskey ; but I yearned beyond measure for a good 
draught of that goat's milk out of one of the bowls float- 
ing in the delicious fluid, and which the women caught up 
in their fingers and extended towards us. But the major 
stepped ahead. He understood the danger we were in much 
better than I did. Quick action alone could save us, as he 
afterward explained ; and he stepped quickly ahead. 

The old women spoke both together ; and then the fern 



44^ ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

boys came up, and with them the venders of photographs ; 
and close behind them were the dealers in the bog-oak jew- 
elry, made from that black wood, and touched off with 
brass. And then they all opened their mouths. 

And the major stared at them with a blankness that 
seemed almost supernatural. 

He put his hand up to his ear, and shook his head, and 
looked unutterably unhappy. It was the deaf game over 
again. I followed suit. Then the people hfted their voices ; 
but still we could not hear theirs. I merely shook my head, 
and left the major to say at every repulse, " My good people, 
I fail to catch your meaning, owing to excessive deafness." 
Then they hfted up their voices still higher, and took up 
their articles and shook them before him, and danced around 
on the road, and made up grimaces, and resorted to numer- 
ous other intelHgent devices to convey to him a tenth part 
of their anxiety to sell him something. 

But he could not hear them, and I had explained to them 
that I was his servant : so they had no other alternative but 
to fall back and curse his deafness, which they did with an 
earnestness that would have overcome any other man's com- 
posure. 

On our return, and in passing through the village, we had 
another rabble after us ; but we gave them crumbs of French 
and bon-mots in Latin, and much that was comforting and 
instructive in German, — things that could not remove their 
hunger, but which served to appease them until we could 
get away. 

That night the major went back to Dublin, after playing 
a game of forty-five with the head steward of the hotel, 
and winning ten shillings from him ; which caused that un- 
fortunate individual to relapse into a moody silence for the 
rest of the evening. 

The next day I did the Gap of Dunloe. But the major 
was away, and there were no touters, nor poteen-sellers. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 44/ 

nor peddlers of any kind, and but one beggar (and he only- 
had one ear off) : so I didn't enjoy the trip. But it was 
gloomy and imposing, was the gap ; and it rained nearly all 
the time : so there was some satisfaction about it. 

However, there was one feature — not of the gap, as it is 
just out of it — which pleased me amazingly. This was the 
maid who occupies Kate Kearney's cottage, and sells photo- 
graphs and poteen. I got some of the poteen. It isn't 
so pleasant, as a beverage, as is camphene ; but it is more 
dangerous. But the maid interested me. I had heard so 
much of the wondrous beauty of Kate Kearney, that I was 
glad indeed to look upon the present occupant of the cot- 
tage, who is a direct descendant from Kate. Her name is 
Kearney too ; which struck me as being singular, for obvious 
reasons. 

Miss Kearney came to the door of the cabin on my appli- 
cation, and smiled when she saw me, displaying two rows of 
teeth as she did so, — one in each row. Then she had 
freckles, and coarse red hair, and a scar over her left eye, 
and one foot turned in, and a voice like a file ; and she 
squinted, and sweat under the arms. 

I withered before her glance. 

"Are you a descendant of the beautiful Kate Kearney?" 

" Yis, sir." 

"Is Kate dead? '» 

" Miny years ago, sir." 

"Thank Heaven!" I ejaculated. "Rig up a flowing 
bowl ! " 



44^ ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



n 



CHAPTER LIII. 



A NEWLY-ARRIVED YANKEE. 



BACK to Mallow again, and thence down the Dublin 
and Cork line to the latter city. 

Cork has not eighty thousand population. The best part 
of the city is on an island ; although there is a portion of it, 
and a very decent and respectable part of it, located on a 
tremendous hill. 

There is but little to attract tourists in Cork. Shandon's 
bells, of which some poet has sung, are in the steeple of 
some Cork church. I didn't hear them ; and, as the Cork 
people appeared to be very much composed, I imagined 
there was nothing particularly exciting about the chimes. 
All the streets of Cork, except some of the cross-lanes, are 
crooked. The chief street is the St. Patrick, which, although 
not so straight as an arrow, is very close to it, being in the 
shape of a bow. 

.The guide-book says the street is spoiled by the irregular- 
ity of the buildings. But that was its chief charm to me ; 
and no street which I have seen in Britain, except some 
ancient thoroughfare, afforded me so much comfort as did 
St. Patrick. Its buildings were of varying heights, to be 
sure ; but they also were of varying colors, and some of them 
of a bright and cheerful countenance ; in which respect they 
somewhat resembled the lower part of Fourth Avenue in 
New York, or South Pearl Street in Albany. I wept many 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 449 

scalding tears in St. Patrick Street. Home memories always 
do whip the juice out of me. 

There is nothing more to write about Cork that I can 
think of. 

One day, while there, I went down to Queenstown. You 
know Queenstown. There is no place in Europe that is so 
dear to me as Queenstown. Four-fifths of the numerous 
steamers now sailing between England and America touch 
at Queenstown, both in going and coming, to embark, and 
to land the mails. From Queenstown to Liverpool is a run 
of twenty-two or twenty-four hours for the steamer. But the 
mails landed there proceed to Dublin, thence across the 
Irish Sea to Holyhead in England (a distance of sixty-four 
miles), and thence by rail again to London. In this way 
several hours are gained in mail-time ; which is of considera- 
ble importance in this fast age. The leading EngKsh dailies 
make a specialty of foreign mail news ; and an American 
loses no time in the morning in getting a daily, and referring 
at once to that column. 

That evening, when I got back to my hotel in Cork, I 
found a party of Americans had arrived. There appeared 
to be two or three families of them. Part of them were 
going to Dublin to make a stay ; and a part were going over 
to England at once, and thence proceed to Paris. I am very 
fond and proud of my countrymen at home ; but abroad 
they are the most genial and comprehensive of asses of any 
people I have fallen in with. When you come across an 
American who has been over here any length of time, you 
find a sedate, pleasant, well-informed, and courteous per- 
sonage. He is perfectly natural. 

These Americans were at the hotel. I found them as 
companions at dinner. I didn't say any thing to them, of 
course, because they were not English or Irish, to whom you 
could have opened your heart at once ; but they were Amer- 
icans just over, and they were enough in themselves. They 



450 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



1 



talked over all their plans, without reserve. An Irish friend 
and myself — the only foreigners in the company — attempted 
to say something on our own account ; but we found in a 
very short time that there was no chance for ourselves : so we 
sunk into a proper silence, and let the new arrivals talk. 

It soon transpired that they were ultimately going to Switz- 
erland. They made arrangements, in a tone of voice to be 
heard all over the room, for meeting in Berne, and Rome 
and Venice, and Jerusalem and Constantinople, and Paris 
and Vienna. 

After dinner I went down into the smoking-room, and had 
the fire and cigar all to myself. I had sat there some fifteen 
minutes, thinking of my money in the bank, and of my real 
estate and other property, when the head of one of the fami- 
lies, the one which was going to remain in Ireland for a few 
days, came in with his cigar. He took a seat on the other 
side of the fire-place, and commenced a conversation at once. 

" I find it pretty hard work to get along with the hotel 
system here," he said, *'it is so much difierent from that in 
my country." 

"You are not an EngHshman, then? " I asked with some 
interest. 

" Oh, dear, no ! " he answered. " I am from America : 
just come." 

" And are the American hotels conducted differently from 
ours? " I asked, warming up in the subject. 

" Well, you bet they are ! " he said. " Just as different as 
day and night. Now, what sort of a dinner do you call that 
we had just now?" 

" That was table d'hote, rather slim, I'll admit." 

"/ should say so. Why, for two weeks before I came 
away, — I live in Brooklyn, and am connected with the Pub- 
lic Works there, — I broke up keeping house, and took my 
family to the Westminster Hotel in New York. Why, this 
place ain't a woodshed beside it. And we had eight courses 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 45 1 

for dinner, with ice-cream and confectionery, and nuts and 
coffee, and all sorts of fruit, to top off with." 

" How much would such a meal cost you? " I inquired. 

*' Oh ! we don't pay by the meal in our hotels." 

" What ! " I ejaculated in some astonishment. 

" No, we don't pay by the meal. We pay by the day, — so 
much a day; and you have the best the market affords." 

" I have often heard of America," I said, " and have for 
years felt a great desire to go over there ; but I have dreaded 
the trip, because of fear that the hotels would not be com- 
fortable." 

" Pooh ! You won't find finer or as fine hotels in all the 
world as you can find in the States," he declared, taking the 
cigar from his mouth, and staring earnestly at me. " You 
can have every thing you want. And as for drinks, there is 
nothing like it. I suppose you have heard of the great vari- 
ety of our drinks? " 

" Oh, yes ! " I said. "I met an American the other day, 
and he gave me quite an account of the aptitude of your bar- 
tenders. It must be wonderful." And I sighed audibly. 

" Well, we don't think much of it over our way ; but I sup- 
pose it strikes you English as being extraordinary. If you 
should try a cobbler, one of our genuine sherry-cobblers, you 
wouldn't want to come down to your plain drinks again. 
But I must go to see off some people who came over with 
us, and are going to meet us in Venice ; but I advise you 
to go to America if you want to see good square living." 

And thus he departed. But his advice sank deeply into 
my mind, and I sincerely hope the day will come when I 
may see America, — that wonderful country. I want to see 
the people too, they are so modest ! 

The next day I left Cork, retracing my way to Mallow. 
The first station beyond Cork had its sign-board embedded 
in the ivy which clung to the wall on which it was. The 
name was simple enough ; but what a flood of speculations 
it called up ! The name was Blarney. 



452 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

Blarney consisted simply of the station-buildings and part 
of a freight-train. After getting down, and learning that the 
road which crossed the track led over to the castle, I left my 
bag with the station-master, and trudged forward. 

Perhaps it was not two miles to the castle. The road rose 
up and dipped down, and finally turned sharp to the right, 
and dipped down over a .creek, and by a row of tenements, 
occupied, I knew, by factory-operatives, even before I saw 
the factory. I passed that. There was with me a young 
man from Cork. He had a sort of basket-work bag thrown 
over his shoulder, and held by the handle of a hammer put 
through the handles of the basket-bag. He had never before 
been in Blarney, and had not heard of the castle, nor of 
its priceless treasure, the Blarney-stone. I was very much 
surprised to learn that he was a machinist. I thought he 
might be the president of a state normal school. He had 
come up from Cork to do a job at one of the mills. Beyond 
the mill where I left him was a fragment of a village, built 
up at a cross-road, — not such a village as would be seen in 
an American rural district, consisting of two or three stores, 
cooper, wagon, and blacksmith shops, with straggling houses 
set in the middle of ample yards. The stores were here ; but 
the houses were of stone,*and built smack up against the 
sidewalk, and smack up against each other. They were of 
stone, I have said. But it was not necessary. Ninety out 
of every hundred houses in Britain are of stone ; and the 
balance, of brick or concrete. I have not seen a dwelling 
built of wood since I left America. And I have not seen a 
single shingle roof in that time : to tell the truth, I have 
not seen a shingle even. This is dreadful ; but I endure it 
because it is true : I am very fond of true things. 

On a little bridge I paused, and took a good look at the 
castle. 

Beyond the bridge was an open gate ; and inside the stone 
wall, close to it, was a little whitewashed cabin, answering as 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 453 

the porter's lodge, I suppose. But there was no one of 
whom to ask permission to enter. I looked into the open 
door of the house, and saw an earth floor, and a half-dozen 
hens roosting on the backs of chairs, (such proud hens are 
these Irish fowls !) but no human being in sight. Then I 
followed the road up to a clump of trees on an elevation, 
where stood the castle. Reaching the trees, I found a num- 
ber of workmen employed on a large structure of brick, — a 
canning-factory. It was on the grounds of Mr. Somebody, 
who owned the land hereabouts, including the run of Blarney 
Castle, and a very barn-like fabric where he lived himself. 
Right in the shadow of the old ruin this desecrator was put- 
ting up a factory ; and even a portion of the hoary wall had 
been shedded over by the despoiler, and converted into a 
carpenter-shop. 

The castle was in ruins ; but the very large keep was in 
excellent condition, so far as its walls were concerned. But 
it was roofless and floorless : there was simply the shell. 
The castle had been a fine building in its day, as was evident 
from the stone mouldings about the few windows which were 
remaining. It was built partly in the side of the hill, which 
made its present state look even the more dilapidated. The 
hardy ivy had taken the broken walls in hand, and was cov- 
ering them with its sturdy and remorseless vines and glossy 
green leaves. Up through what might have been the draw- 
ing-room was now growing a stout and healthy elm. 

A door opened into the keep from the castle. I mounted 
up the circular stair which was within the wall, at the first 
angle. It was mostly a double wall, with apartments that 
may have been used for either defenders or prisoners con- 
tained therein. At the top the wall was fully eight feet in 
width. The winds of heaven had deposited dust and the 
seed of grass and weeds on the summit ; and the rains of 
heaven had moistened the one, and caused the other to take 
root and flourish. The battlement to the walls was curiously 



454 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



1 



constructed : it rested on arms of stone built into the wall, 
and was sustained on the ^rms by sills of stone. I don't 
remember exactly, but I believe the arms were about four 
feet apart, and the battlement about eight inches from the 
main wall. In case of besiegers reaching the foot of the 
keep, this opening gave the defenders on the wall an op- 
portunity for pitching down things objectionable to the 
besiegers. 

Should one of these sills break, it would be necessary to 
take care of it at once ; or that portion of the battlement it 
sustained might drop, and irritate anybody who happened to 
be under it. One of those sills is broken, and is now held 
in its place by two bands of iron, running over the top of the 
battlement. 

And this stone is the Blarney-stone. In many of the 
pictures of it the bands are represented, not as fulfilling 
their legitimate functions, but as aids to adventurous people 
of matchless credulity, in letting them down, head first, to 
reach the stone. But these bands are close to the stone- 
work ; and a person, to kiss the stone, must crawl upon the 
battlement, over a hundred feet from the ground, and be let 
down by his heels, held in the hands of two persons perched 
on the narrow and dizzy summit. 

People have kissed it undoubtedly ; but I would rather see 
it than hear tell of it, as Elihu Burritt observes. For the 
accommodation of people in delicate health, a stone for 
kissing has been located on the ground. 

The Blarney-stone found its origin in some verses which 
are as familiar to you as they are to me. They were written 
in a spirit of frolic, but were sincerely believed by a host of 
people, who flocked to the little village of Blarney to see and 
test the virtues of the stone. The pressure became so great, 
that it was really necessary to find a stone for the purpose ; 
and this one, distinguished by the bands, was selected by a 
shrewd somebody. He was working for the amelioration of 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 455 

mankind, sincerely believing, without doubt, that every fresh 
idiot who attempted the kissing would fall and break his 
neck. 

One verse of the ditty reads, — 

" There is a stone there, 
That whoever kisses, 
Oh ! he never misses 

To grow eloquent : 
'Tis he may clamber 
To a lady's chamber, 
Or become a member 

Of Parliament." 

It became a popular poem ; and so many flocked there, 
that the name of the little village became a general term for 
doubtful flattery. 

When I left the place it was nearly ten o'clock in the 
morning, I having left Cork at a very early hour. The ma- 
sons had knocked off work, and were sitting on a pile of 
timber just outside the keep, eating their breakfast, which 
their wives, or some of their children, had brought them. It 
consisted of bread, potatoes, and tea. They seemed to 
enjoy it. 



45^ ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



CHAPTER LIV. 

ACROSS THE COUNTRY IN A MAIL-CART. 

I TOOK the next train from Blarney, and proceeded on 
the Dublin road to a station called Goold's Cross. Here 
I was to take a mail-car to Cashel to see its famous rock. 
I have not said any thing of the mail-car routes in Ireland ; 
but they are numerous. It is the jaunting-car that runs 
from railway-stations to outlying villages, carrying the mails 
between the two points. The number of their trips in the 
week depends upon the importance of the route. They 
take passengers, where there are any ; but, as the contract is 
remunerative without, the fares are remarkably low. Cashel 
is twelve miles from Goold's Cross, and the mail-car runs 
there and back every day. The fare there, and return, was 
but two shillings and sixpence, or sixty cents. This is 
cheaper than dried apples, and even more filling. I mounted 
the cart. I was the only passenger. An attenuated-looking 
boy of nineteen years was the driver. An attenuated-look- 
ing horse, also of nineteen years, was in the thills. A pair 
of rope reins was a conspicuous feature. I knew I should 
enjoy this ride. It was to be twelve miles, and I had the 
driver all to myself How I would pump him ! We kept up 
an animated conversation. I talked of America, and politi- 
cal economy, and education, and Count Arnim ; and the 
driver let himself out on about every thing that could be ex- 
pressed in " Yes, sir," " No, sir," and " I don't know, sir." 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 45/ 

He trotted the horse all the way. But the horse would have 
trotted without any other incentive than to have got through 
the dreary country. There were but few trees, and less 
cultivated fields (mostly potatoes), with here and there a 
squatty cabin by the wayside; and it rained in a dreary 
and desponding way all the distance. We picked up a pas- 
senger here and there on the road, until our complement of 
four was full. 

One of them was a pohceman, dressed in a black suit like 
the fatigue-dress of an army-officer. There are twenty 
thousand of these police in Ireland. They are confined 
principally to the rural districts, and are equally distributed 
about the country. They have barracks, and are uniformed, 
and carry muskets (when necessary), and are thoroughly 
drilled. They are the cork which bottles Fenianism. There 
are soldiers here, quartered about the country, as there are 
in Scotland and England ; but these police, selected from 
the natives, are the trumps. They have put down all the 
Fenian outbreaks, and they are the boys to do it. Fenianism 
is not popular here with the upper classes. I have had the 
pleasure of spending an evening with several families, and I 
have had the thorough enjoyment of the company of numer- 
ous gentlemen on the railway and in hotels ; but I never 
knew one of them who was not opposed to Fenianism. It 
is only in America and in France that Fenianism stands a 
living sight, — in the former place, because America is too 
good-natured to interfere with anybody ; and in the latter, 
because France is jealous of England. 

There are Catholics and Protestant Fenians. It is not a 
religious struggle. It is carried on for a nationality by those 
people who pin their faith to legends and traditions, and 
who believe that Ireland could grow into the leading nation 
of the world. 

These policemen are for the protection of ruralists, as 
well as the country at large ; and they are divided into three 



458 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 



1 



classes. The first class receive seven dollars and fifty cents 
a week ; the second, six dollars and seventy-five cents ; and 
the third, six dollars and thirty-seven cents. Length of ser- 
vice and efficiency are the conditions of promotion. 

We approached Cashel, and saw the rock. A local his- 
torian says it is a mass of stone thrown up above the surface 
of the earth by a volcano. It does not strike the visitor as 
being a solid rock at all. It is on a plain, however, and it 
is a considerable prominence : but the rock is scarcely visible 
to the eye, as the most of the place is covered with turf; 
and it is only at the steep sides that the rock is at all appar- 
ent, and then in but small quantities. I should call it a hill 
in a plain, near to which are hills of greater prominence. 
The village is near it. The mail-car driver let me down in 
front of a little inn. There I got a chop and some deliciously 
boiled potatoes. While they were in preparation I borrowed 
an umbrella, and took a stroll up the hill. 

Cashel is called the " City of Kings," because, many cen- 
turies ago, the kings of Munster dwelt here. The stone on 
which they were crowned is still here on the hill. They 
sat on it while being crowned. Those who do not realize 
how our forefathers suffered, and the deprivations they were 
called upon to endure, should sit on a stone for about an 
hour and a half. This would enlighten them, I fancy. 

I passed through several straggling streets to the hill, and 
up a road to its summit. It was raining quite hard, and 
there was just wind enough to make holding the umbrella an 
interesting operation. 

At the summit I passed around a ruined building into an 
open space which might have served as a court in the dim 
past. It looked very wet and disagreeable now. At one 
side was a sort of shed for stone-cutting, and several men 
were at work at that business. Then there was the building 
which I came around, and also a large church ; and between 
these two were a number of graves. The ground and grass 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 459 

were wet, and the wind swept through the court in disagreea- 
ble gusts. 

They were restoring the church. In the arch of the 
central tower was a massive scaffolding ; and on it were a 
dozen men at work with trowels, patching up the arch. 
This building was the most complete of the several ruins. 
But what on earth were they restoring it for? If restored, 
it ceases to be a ruin, and consequently loses three-fifths of 
its interest ; and, as a place of worship, the idea is ridiculous. 
There it is upon a hill, and out of the way, and consequendy 
impracticable. Besides, the httle village of Cashel can boast 
scarcely four thousand people, and already has more churches 
than it can occupy. But they are restoring it at a considera- 
ble and unnecessary expense. I don't envy them. 

This cathedral is younger than the other buildings, dating 
only from the twelfth century. It was partly burnt in the 
fifteenth century by the Earl of Kildare. He afterwards 
regretted the deed, and, in his penitence, frankly confessed 
that he would not have attempted to burn down the sacred 
edifice had he not been certain the archbishop was in it at 
the time. The chapel which adjoins it is of stone, — walls, 
roof, and ceiling ; and inside of it are many curiously-de- 
signed and finely-wrought mouldings, effigies, figures, &c. It 
is fourteen hundred years old, and was built by a monarch of 
Ulster. The Rock of Cashel has been a good place for 
monarchs. Any quantity of them have been crowned on 
it, and held court there, and fought and schemed. They 
were kings ; but now their very names are not known. 

St. Patrick figured quite largely here. All writers agree 
in attributing to this saint superior sanctity and the purest 
benevolence. He had a school, and spent a great part of 
his time here. But it was at Armagh, I think, that he ban- 
ished the snakes and frogs from Ireland. But there are 
really no snakes here, and people come thousands of miles 
to go blackberrying in Ireland. I am willing to make oath 
to this before any justice of the peace. 



460 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

The palace — But how ridiculous it is to waste ink on 
such shanties ! I wandered about the building for some time, 
waiting for the man who occupied a fragment of the palace, 
and who had charge of the ruins, to turn up ; but he didn't 
come. I went out among the graves, and found a goat there. 
He was much surprised to see me. This led me to put up 
my umbrella, and run at him. This tickled the goat. He 
ran over the graves, and I put after him. When he got 
across he suddenly changed his mind, and turned back. I 
am pretty good on my feet ; but I had my legs fully occu- 
pied in getting into the chapel before the goat did. 

Then I left the place. There were ruins enough already 
on that hill, without my fooling around that goat. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 46 1 



CHAPTER LV. 



PECULIAR FEATURES IN DUBLIN. 



THIS return to Dublin makes my third visit to the city. 
Dublin is a perplexity to me. But few people, com- 
paratively, have seen the city; and there are thousands, 
without doubt, who never heard its name. But no one, 
however deep in the jungles of Africa, or far up on the peaks 
of Greenland, can say that he has not heard of its custom- 
house. 

The custofn-house of Dublin has been famihar to me by 
name since I left the cradle, and it has been the theme of 
all orators and writers of Ireland. Julius Caesar calls it the 
Otum dogi, signifying the temple of God. 

The city of Dublin is, as may be inferred, close to the 
custom-house. It is a city of some two hundred and fifty 
thousand inhabitants, and is tolerably well laid out, with the 
River Liffey running square through the middle of it. Sack- 
ville Street, whose fame has been carried over the oceans by 
native enthusiasts, is as straight as a teetotaler, and of won- 
derful breadth. It is the handsomest business-street I have 
seen in Britain. 

Dublin is a dirty city after a rain, and yet a bright-look- 
ing city at all times. I have been there in several rains, and 
found the quantity of mud to be something remarkable. 
This is owing, I am told, to an imperfect sewerage. Now, 
if the Dublinites could only exchange their custom-house 



462 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

for a good sewer, they would do a stroke that would entitle 
them to credit. 

All the guide-books think a great deal of Dublin. They 
can't come within a hundred miles of it without lugging it 
in. They know that it is utterly impossible to see this enor- 
mous city at one time ; and so they divide up the sights into 
several days, the same as is done in London, Paris, and other 
small cities. 

Now, I fail to see any thing wonderful about Dublin, either 
as a whole or in fragments. A man with a pair of green 
goggles might safely trust himself in the midst of its dazzling 
glories, I think. So we will say no more about Dublin as a 
city, — although it is finer than any other in Ireland, — but 
will talk of its people, and their peculiarities. 

There is one thing in all these Irish cities which must 
strike every American ; and that is the absence of Irish 
names. I speak advisedly when I say Irish names, because 
the strictly Irish name is quite frequently prefixed by a Mc 
or an O'. There is not only an absence of these, but of the 
others which we in America have determined to be neces- 
sarily Irish. You can see on the signs such names as John- 
son, Perkins, Gibbs, Hooper, Nichols, Taylor, Wells, Bacon, 
Jackson, Jennings, Thompson, Webb, Rice, Goodwin, and 
of that kind. There are twenty of them where there is one 
of what we have been used to consider Irish names. 

And then the people you see in these cities are so much 
different in looks from what we have been accustomed to 
see. The characteristic Irish face is not common, except 
among the poorer classes. Why ! there are plenty of 
Englishmen who look more like the Irish than do these. 
In fact, their faces are a compound of pure English and 
pure Scotch. It is dreadful to think of ! 

But there are more Irish in Dublin than there are in New 
York. 

There was an opera-company from London at the leading 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 463 

theatre when I was first visiting Dublin. I have not taken 
much to operas in my time, owing to lack of ear, I think. 
Newspaper-men are generally deficient in this respect. I 
attended the opera in default of any thing more improving, 
such as a .ballet or necromancy. The gallery was well 
attended ; but I was rather surprised at the occupants of that 
favorite place. Most of the men had their coats off, and 
hung to hooks in the front of the gallery, which had been 
placed there by the enterprising managers for the accommo- 
dation of the public. There the coats hung, in full sight of 
the audience, like a display in a pawnbroker's shop. But 
there were not hooks for all who desired them ; and many 
were obliged to put the coats over the backs of the seats, or 
sit on them. Some contented themselves with just removing 
their coats ; others took off the vest, or waistcoat, as well ; 
'and a large number removed their collars and opened their 
shirt-fronts (shirts don't open behind here), and even rolled 
up their shirt-sleeves. 

It was a spectacle for a man from a new country to look 
upon and ponder .over. We Americans are a sort of raw, 
half-fed, savage race. We are not to be compared to the 
advanced civilization of Europe ; but we don't attend operas 
in our shirt-sleeves. Thank Heaven for that ! 

But, even without this extraordinary display of stripped 
bodies, the audience in that gallery were conspicuous. They 
had come to see the opera. Refined people were they. 
They shrieked and yelled and howled, and sang songs, and 
whistled and hissed and groaned. They did all this up to 
the rising of the curtain, and filled up every intermission with 
the uproar. It was a perfect Niagara of noise. 

As soon as the music commenced they ceased. But then 
that is the business of music, — to soothe the savage breast. 
It had its hands full on this occasion ; but it succeeded. 

Of the public buildings of consequence there are the post- 
ofhce, bank, and Guinness's breweries. Oh, yes ! and the 



464 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

custom-house. Guinness is to the world in the manufac- 
ture of stout what Bass is in the construction of ale. On 
the river low flat-boats may be frequently seen, with tiers of 
barrels of stout upon them. We don't go much for stout in 
our country ; but here it is a very common beverage ; and it 
is very good too, I have been led to understand. The 
original Guinness, father of the present party, was a very reli- 
gious brewer. He gave three-quarters of a million of dollars 
to the restoration of the Dublin Cathedral belonging to the 
Church of Ireland, and saw the work done before he died. 
Three dollars given to charity or to religion by a man in 
health is equivalent to six dollars from a man in death. The 
latter encourages others to keep the poor and the church 
waiting until after they have had time to die. 

If I can hurl a little instruction now and then into these 
letters, I shall be glad to do it. 

The street peculiarities of Dublin are two in number. 
One of them is a broad sidewalk system. Their sidewalks 
are so broad, that the people keep on them, and do not spill 
over into the roadway, as is so common in English and 
Scotch towns. The other is apple-peddling in the evening. 
Mostly women do this, of course. The Irish like to do busi- 
ness according to usage estabhshed by age ; and, as woman 
in the first place took naturally to apples, it is proper, they 
think, that woman should continue her interest in that direc- 
tion. And so women in great numbers peddle apples in 
Ireland. I should very much like to know what there is in an 
apple to cause an Irishman to gravitate toward it. Even a 
New-Englander will scarcely eat the number of apples that 
an Irishman can make away with. These people are so 
fond of them, that they will not raise them. The Irish are 
reputed to be extravagantly fond of pork, and the pig is 
allotted a chair in the home-circle of the poorer classes. I 
have been into several t:abins of the poor in different parts 
of the country ; but I saw no pigs therein. Fowls have been 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 465 

plenty, but pigs not at all. This explodes a generally-received 
opinion. Poultry and apples are what the Irish chiefly lay 
hold of; although I can truly say I have seen none of the 
lower classes eat of the former, and very few of the latter. I 
imagine that both are kept more for company and show than 
for profit. But in the evening the apple-peddlers are partic- 
ularly noticeable. They are at their stands until the theatres 
close. The most favorite resort is at the ends of the Sack- 
ville-street Bridge. Here each has a stand, containing from 
ten apples to a peck, according to the strength of capital in 
the concern ; and on each stand is mounted a paper lantern. 
Some stands have two of them. The lantern is simply a cyl- 
inder rudely put together. It sets over the candle to protect 
its flame from the wind ; but, as there is no organized effort 
to secure the same color, the effect is frequently picturesque. 
Once in a while the lantern takes fire ; when the proprietor, 
with extraordinary presence of mind, screams for help, and 
throws up her hands ; and the other proprietors gather 
about, and do likewise ; and some half-dozen stands are over- 
turned, and the several contents sadly mixed, engendering 
bitter and life-long animosities. Despite these precautions, 
the lantern is generally a total loss, and a new one has to be 
erected. 

By coming over to the old country, we learn that many 
of our customs are copied from them. Our style of all sorts 
of conveyances at funerals, corning pork, and boihng pota- 
toes with their jackets on, comes from the Irish. The Eng- 
lish and Scotch do none of these things. The Irish at 
home do not bend their whole energies to the development 
of a funeral-procession, as those in America do ; but still it 
is made of fair proportion. 

Jaunting-cars are added to the display. It is surprising 
the amount of mournfulness a jaunting-car imparts to a fu- 
neral, especially if the driver should be engaged in smoking 
a pipe. It is also surprising the number of people who can 



466 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

get on to a jaunting-car. Numbers of the rural people come 
into the city on pleasant days, and get on the jaunting-cars 
for a pleasure-ride. A car is adapted to carrying five per- 
sons, including the driver. These are city people. But 
country folks can concentrate, and are fond of it. I have 
seen nine of them on a single jaunting-car ; and the driver 
also managed to ride at the same time. 

I had the pleasure of being in Dublin of a Sunday. I 
walked through Phoenix Park, and St. Stephen's Green, and 
numerous streets ; and while I saw much that was beautiful 
and comfortable, still nothing took hold of me like the scene 
that presented itself in St. Patrick Street. I had been to see 
St. Patrick's (Protestant) Cathedral.^ It stands in a wretched 
part of the city, so poor and forlorn, and greasy and dirty, 
that I understand and thoroughly sympathize with that 
writer who thinks Mr. Guinness would have been more sensi- 
ble had he built a new cathedral with the money he devoted 
to restoring this. Its location is so low, that its floor is below 
the street-level ; but then that gives it that religious dampness 
which appears to be so desirable to the worshipping Britisher. 
Now, when you look over the elegant interior of this build- 
ing, and come out and look at the Baxter-street surround- 
ings, you are surprised. The people who worship are largely 
from the aristocracy. They come in doeskin and sealskin, 
through these depraved avenues, to the temple of their God. 
But it is a way they have. This is the cathedral, — a con- 
secrated building, a sacred edifice, hoary with age, moss- 
grown with history. They would put on their heavy cassi- 
meres and stiff satins, and wade through a swamp ten feet 
deep, to reach this building. No change in the surroundings 
of their temple, however undesirable, appears to suggest to 
them a change in site for the better. 

About here St. Patrick Street commences, and runs toward 
the river. I walked down it, and through its continuation, 
called Nicholas Street, to Christ-church Cathedral, — another 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 46/ 

aged Protestant edifice, although with somewhat better sur- 
roundings than are enjoyed by St. Patrick's. 

And it was a street. It was not straight, of course, or 
broad ; but the scene of activity within it on this sabbath day 
nearly overpowered me. It was lined on both sides with 
second-hand-goods stores, meat-markets, groceries, and the 
like, all open, with sidewalks filled with goods, and all busy, 
disposing of cutlets, gate-hinges, coffee, old kettles, and the 
like. I went down this active thoroughfare in almost a maze, 
hardly certain of any thing but the smell. It was very dif- 
ficult to realize that here were one Catholic and two Prot- 
estant cathedrals in the neighborhood. I couldn't help 
but experience a thrill of gratitude to know that there were 
no more cathedrals in dangerous proximity. 

I had got partly through Nicholas Street, and somewhat 
beyond the busy stores, when I met a most singular funeral. 
The coffin was that of a child about six years old. It was 
wrapped up in canvas, and the loose ends of the canvas 
twisted about a pole. A man had hold of one end of the 
pole, and a boy of some fifteen years bore the other end. 
And so they passed me, and went on their ghastly errand, 
not a soul accompanying them, and none of the trading and 
bartering throng apparently taking any notice of them. It 
was a common sight to them, poor bodies ; but it touched 
me up. A woman who kept a butcher-shop told me that the 
funeral came from an adjacent lane. The body in the little 
box was a boy, — "a sick, wake body," explained the woman. 
He was the only son and only child of Mr. and Mrs. Mur- 
phy. For all the years of his little life he had been aihng 
and pining and suffering ; and all those years the poor parents 
had tended him and watched him, and begged God to spare 
him. Every penny they could take from their scanty supply 
of pennies was cheerfully, yea, gladly, devoted to him. 
And they saw him die, saw the breath come and go more 
faintly moment by moment, the eyes grow dull, the hps turn 



468 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

ashy, the hands less nervous in their movements ; and, when 
he died, it seemed to them as if every hving element in the 
air about them had died with him. 

And it was this boy in a rough box, slung in a hammock 
twisted to a pole, that I met josding along the busy way. 
To the whole world it was a very cheap and coarse affair ; 
but to the miserable and wretched pair in the lane it was a 
gold mine, a priceless treasure. To them it was every thing 
that money could buy, that heart could wish, that brains 
could conceive. Around that lump of clay were wrapped 
the tenderest chords of their hearts ; and every step of the 
homely pall-bearers applied the tension to those chords, and 
stretched them to breaking. 

The only thing about the whole affair which I could see 
to feel grateful for was, that I had legs sufficiently able- 
bodied to take me out of that neighborhood, and from the 
sight of that which could remind me of the pidable loss. 

There is not much enjoyment in travelling through Ireland, 
unless you are worth a million dollars. I do not refer to 
this particular case, of course ; but seeing distress, and not 
being able to relieve it, is an agony which tends to suffoca- 
tion. 

On the other hand, there is a pleasure in travelling through 
these countries, to become acquainted with the people. It 
demolishes false ideas, and erases prejudices. That poverty 
abounds in most of the rural sections of Ireland, the people 
freely admit. The direct cause of it seems to lie with the 
miserable pohcy of the landlords. In conversation with an 
Irish gentleman on the subject (and I wish to state here 
that I have taken all the information used in these letters 
from the Irish only), he strongly condemned the landlords. 
Knowing him to be a thorough Catholic, and knowing, too, 
how much the most of us are influenced by our religion in 
our judgments, I asked him if these obnoxious landlords 
were Catholic, or Protestant. " Both," said he. " I make 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 469 

no distinction whatever in this respect. Both Catholic and 
Protestant landlords are alike to blame for the wretched 
state of our agricultural sections." 

Speaking of religion reminds me that I have noticed in 
my travels here that lack of divine animosity toward each 
other that I was led to believe existed. The Protestant 
bishop of Tuam employs Catholics. A curate of the Church 
of Ireland stoutly refuted reflections upon some of his 
Catholic neighbors, and told me that he was treated as 
courteously by Catholic residents of the community as by 
his Protestant flock. 

One of the jolliest evenings I have enjoyed in my life was 
with a Catholic family in Connaught ; and yet two of the 
five gentlemen guests I met there were Orangejne?i. I 
regret having to refer to these incidents, because of the 
humiliating inference that Christian charity is so rare as to 
require special mention. 

As I travelled for some time among the people, I may 
consistently claim to know a little something about them, 
and so gladly bear witness, that for hospitality, good nature, 
and courtesy, the people of Ireland are at the front. 

Speaking of courtesy reminds me of a remark recently 
made by an American lady who had travelled with her two 
children through Europe. She said she met with more rude- 
ness going from New York to Boston, on her return, than 
-she had encountered in all her travels abroad. 

I have no doubt of it. 

In conclusion, I must tell you an illustrative incident. 
While in Dublin, I had occasion to make two purchases of 
books. At either place the required volume was not in 
stock ; but they offered to send it to me in England. I ten- 
dered the payment ; but in each case it was declined until 
after I had received the purchase. And I received the books 
in a few days. I was a perfect stranger to the parties, and 
they had to run the risk of receiving payment. I well know 



470 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

that I have an open and ingenuous face ; but still their trust 
in my word was, under the circumstances, somewhat amazing. 
I told an English friend of the incident, and he said, — 
"That is nothing; although it would be remarkable if 
you met the same experience in England or Scotland. But 
to place trust in an Irishman is equivalent to a performance 
of the duty. You wanted to pay for the books before receiv- 
ing them, and their characteristic gallantry would not permit 
them to submit you to a risk that they could themselves 
take." 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 47 1 



CHAPTER LVI. 

IN WHICH THE WRITER TAKES LEAVE OF HIS READERS AND A 
GOOD SHARE OF HIMSELF. 

I AM not going to give a history of France : I am merely 
going to devote this last chapter to telling how I went 
there. 

There are several routes to Paris from London. One of 
them is by the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway, to Do- 
ver, and thence by steamer to Calais, — an hour and a half's 
sail. Another is by the same rail to Dover, and thence by 
steamer to Boulogne, — two or three hours' sail. The third 
is to New Haven, and thence across the channel to Dieppe, 
— seven or eight hours' ride. 

The first-named is the most popular, because of its short 
sea-route ; and is the dearest, being fifty per cent over the 
New-Haven and Dieppe route. 

This channel is a great deal like a sound heard in the still- 
ness of the night. It only needs examination to show that 
it doesn't amount to any thing. The Irish Sea is fully as 
grievous to the nerve and stomach of the traveller as is 
the English Channel. But people will cross that, and sail the 
broad Atlantic, with hardly a qualm, who will quail before the 
channel. Men remember a trip across it, made twenty years 
ago, who cannot for the life of them tell where last Sunday's 
text was. I don't know as anybody has attempted a chemi- 
cal analysis of this feeling • but in my judgment it results 



4/2 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

from a reputation acquired in the time of little and imperfect 
boats, and carefully fostered by the short-route company for 
obvious reasons. If I can make you see this trip as I saw 
it, you will arrive, undoubtedly, at the same conclusion. 

The ride from Ludgate-hill Station to Dover was not in 
any way remarkable, barring the cold. It was in the middle 
of November, early in the day, and on leather cushions ; and 
I had to jump up and down eight hundred times to keep 
comfortable. 

At Dover we ran out on a pier ; and, getting down from the 
train, I looked back over the little city and to the left of it, 
and saw more chalk in that one glance than there are cows 
in all America. It was a high pier, — so high, that the top 
of the steamer's funnel hardly came to the top of it. The 
steamer itself was bobbing about with the heavy swells, — the 
steamer that was to take me to France. 

It was not a particularly large boat, — nothing like those 
powerful structures which face and beat down the great 
waves of the Irish Sea between Kingstown and Holyhead, — 
but it was a fine-looking vessel, of about half the capacity 
of a Brooklyn ferry-boat. The deck was open nearly the 
whole way, covered at the centre by the bridge from one 
wheel-box to the other. The first-class passengers were aft, 
with a cabin below : the second-class were at the fore, with 
no cabin at all. All the luggage was piled in the bow, and 
covered with a tarpaulin. There was not in this boat one- 
half the accommodation as in the little sound steamers ply- 
ing from New York to Norwalk ; and yet it was the shortest 
and most popular route from England to France and the 
Continent. 

There were the custom-house ofTficers in attendance ; and, 
as there is more travel between England and France tlian 
between any other two countries, the officers of customs are 
generally known and dreaded. Quiet people who stay at 
home have fallen into the belief that travellers are liars. 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 4/3 

Travellers are ; but they don't lie one-half as hard to home 
people as they do to each other. I don't know why they do 
it : perhaps they can't help it. 

In an incredibly short space of time the luggage was piled 
away, and the boat left. We ran down along the enormous 
cliffs for a way, and then pointed out to sea. We had twenty 
miles to run, and were to do it in an hour and twenty minutes. 

As soon as we got under way, the first-class passengers 
came generally to the front of the vessel, and many of the 
second-class passengers kept under the bridge. I stood on 
a forward hatch, smoking, and talking with several others, for 
a half-hour, and then I went back under the bridge ; and 
the secret of the dread with which this trip is held then came 
out. 

Nearly everybody was on deck, and many of them were 
under the bridge. One of the last number, a French lady, 
seriously intoxicated, was doubled up in a heap close to the 
opening for the machinery, where she could obtain a fair and 
uninterrupted swig at the mingled steam and oil smells with 
every breath she drew. Other people were doubled up about 
this opening ; and a number were seated on the side-benches, 
staring with fixed melancholy at the deck. 

But this is the secret. 

Several men in tarry clothes were moving among this de- 
jected throng with earthen basins. Some one has said (in- 
terested in a projected railroad), that, the more facilities are 
furnished the public to travel, the more it will travel. The 
same remark applies in this case. The more facilities the 
human stomach has to move, the more it will move. These 
tarry- clothed men were kept busy. The vessel was rolling 
nicely, and the motion imparted to the stomach made it 
hanker for sympathy. A man might not have been exactly 
satisfied that he wanted to vomit ; but, when he saw one of 
those suggestive basins going by, he took a decided stand 
in the matter at once, and, beckoning to the bearer, went 



474 ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 

whooping over it immediately. The French lady kept two 
men engaged pretty much all of the time. The exertion she 
was making had sobered her considerably ; and being con- 
vinced that she was going to die within an hour, and afraid 
that her watch was slow, she cared precious little for appear- 
ances. 

She devoted her undivided attention to the basin. At 
times she would moan for two minutes in a low, steady tone ; 
then again she would break out into a howl, or go off into a 
paroxysm of whoops. Whenever she struck the latter, a visi- 
ble activity could be noticed in the basins. One woman, 
who looked like the wife of a Kansas granger, was sitting 
on a bench, leaning back, with hands clasped, as if think- 
ing of some well-remembered picture of a dead horse, when 
an attentive conductor of the bowl passed the vessel inquir- 
ingly to her. With eyes, partly opened she caught a glimpse 
of its appearance, and, waving her hand, languidly protested, 
" No, thank you ! I couldn't eat a mouthful if I should die 
for it." And I sincerely believed hen 

The farther we got out to sea, the more the bowls and 
taiTy-clothed men increased. The deck was covered with 
them. I noticed that one expression did for all. Every- 
body said "Wh-hoop !" when he got a basin before him; 
and those who didn't stand so strictly on ceremony leaned 
over the side of the vessel, and said " Wh-hoop ! " 

While I was making these observations, I stood at this 
opening over the machinery, and took in the oil and steam 
vapors as they wafted upward. Pretty soon I became aware 
that a peculiar sensation was stirring inside of me for a foot- 
hold. It seemed as if my stomach was gradually assuming 
the shape of a compact ball, and that the cigar was losing, 
in a measure, its satisfying moisture. Just as my throat ap- 
peared to have been let out for a castor-oil funnel to a man 
who was apparently doing a good business, the French 
woman started a fresh and unusually good invoice. Then I 



ENGLAND FROM A BACK-WINDOW. 475 

bolted for the side of the vessel, and " Wh-hooped " myself. 
I was surprised at the amount of sentiment and satisfaction 
contained in that simple expression. I threw my whole 
weight into it, and I suppose I was heard in the uttermost 
recesses of the boat. I was engaged some five minutes ; 
and, when I got through, a gentleman who took an interest 
in me presented me with a blank card, on which he had 
carefully inscribed the record I made in that five minutes. 

This was the record : — 

" Wh-hoop ! — whoooo — whoooo — who-oop ! Oh, dear ! 
— — whoooo — whoooo — whooo-oooo-oop ! Mercy on 
me! Wh-hoop! wh-hoop! whoooo-oop ! Heav — wh- 
hoop ! " (Pause of a moment.) " Oo-oo-oo-oo-ooh — wh- 
hoop ! — wh-hoop ! — wh-hoop ! " 

That is the way a man talks when he is looking over the 
side of a boat, and taking aim at something with his liver. 

Learning that I had got through, the officers of the vessel 
prepared to bring it into port. 



Franklin Press: Rand, Avery, &* Co., Boston. 



Voyage of the Paper Canoe; 

A Geographical Journey of 2,500 Miles, from Quebec 
to the Gulf of Mexico, 

By NATHANIEL H. BISHOP, 

Author of "A Thotisand Miles' Walk across South America." Embellished with 
spirited illustrations, and ten maps of the route. 

Svo. Cloth, ^2.50. 



" A fascinating narrative of a very venturesome journey. In following 
his adventures during this unique and daring voyage, we have found 
the province of the reviewer quite lost in the pleasure of perusal. Geo- 
graphical observations and bits of science and history add to the value 
of the volume ; and incidents, amusing or thrilling, colloquies with 
* crackers ' and negroes, and glimpses of Southern life and character 
among the high and the low, enhance the interest of the narrative, and 
lend it life and piquancy. The story of fictitious travels and adventures 
could hardly be more exciting, or hold the reader's attention more 
closely, while the knowledge that the whole narrative is the transcript 
of actual experience deepens the interest. The author's style is modest, 
direct, and fluent. There is no attempt at fine writing, but the story is 
exceedingly well told. There are a dozen or more wood-engravings, 
illustrating the most noteworthy incidents of the trip. There are, in 
addition, ten maps, showing the minutest details of the journey, from 
beginning to end. These have been made for the author by the United- 
States Coast-Survey Bureau, and are probably the most complete and 
accurate maps of the Atlantic coast anywhere obtainable. They are 
engraved with exquisite delicacy." — Boston Journal. 



" The perils encountered by the author are related with a charming 
modesty, but are of thrilling interest. The ' Voyage of the Paper 
Canoe ' is suited to all classes of readers. The scientific man will find 
many interesting facts ; the geographical, the only complete account of 
the interior coast-water route ever published ; the naturalist, various 
items of interest ; the student of character, new and peculiar types ; the 
canoeist, a true and faithful guide from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the 
Gulf of Mexico." — Sunday Herald. 



Sold by all Booksellers and Newsdealers, and sent by mail, post- 
paid, on receipt of price. 

LEE & SHEPARD, Publishers, Boston. 



THIE 



FALL OF DAMASCUS. 

AN HISTORICAL NOVEL. 
BY CHARLES WELLS RUSSELL. 

i2mo. Cloth. $1.50. 



"A book of no common order. The scene, in the eternal city of Damascus ; 
the time, during the reign of Heraclius ; the personages, Roman, Greek, 
Syrian, and Saracen ; the mingling of solid fact and exuberant fancy, — all go 
to make up a romance as different as one can easily imagine from the conven- 
tional and familiar modern novel. The opening chapter introduces us at once 
to the very presence of the persons of the author's creation, who assume a 
reality to the mind rarely possessed by the children of the brain, and to scenes 
so vividly depicted, that one feels as if walking with the hero along the marble 
pavements and among the rose-bowers of the Eastern paradise. The descrip- 
tion is rich, sensuous, Oriental. Characters are drawn with sharp, clear indi- 
viduality, and the interest awakened in them is sure to be retained. Indeed, 
* The Fall of Damascus ' is 

A BOOK HARD TO PUT DOWN, ONCE TAKEN UP, 

till the covers close on its last page. Tlie style is clear, pure, and direct, the 
use of language unexceptionable, and the diamatic spirit more than ordinarily 
marked." — Boston Post. 

THIS IS A STORY OF RARE BEAUTY. 

" It has received the highest praise from literary reviewers, and will evidently 
take rank with the best class of fiction. Those who delight in something to 
read that is elevated above the trasliy novel of the day should invest." — 
Nashua Telegraph. 

LSE & SHEPARD, Publishers - - - Boston. 



THERE SHE BLOWS; 

OR, THE LOG OF THE ARETHUSA. 

By Capt. W. H. Macy of Nantucket. i6mo. Cloth. 
Illustrated. ^1.50. 



" This contains a series of illustrated sketches of actual life on the 
ocean, made up of real incidents, and introducing for the most part 
real characters. The author of the book is an old sea-captain of Nan- 
tucket, who tells his numerous stories, usually called ' yarns,' in lively 
and expressive language, somewhat as an intelligent old sailor talks. 
His tales of adventures on his whaling voyages, his experiences with 
whales and South Sea Island savages, and numerous other things, are 
well told. There is nothing tedious about it. Like most sea-captains 
of his character, he knows how to spin an agreeable ' yarn,' and to give 
and take a joke." — A^. O. Picayune. 

" • There She Blows,' is a rattling, lively, rollicking tale of the * deep 
blue sea,' and the wonderful adventures that befall those who skim the 
breezy waves, and look upon strange lands and stranger people. The 
anecdotes of whalemen, and the startling scenes and incidents con- 
nected with the whale-fishery, are told in a manner to please the young- 
sters, whilst they impart useful information." — Ch. Index, Atlanta, Ga. 

" The book is a narrative of thrilling adventures and hair-breadth 
escapes, and gives one a very full description and knowledge of the 
capture of whales, and, in fact, the whole process in the production of 
whale-oil,' from the first sight of the whale until the oil is stowed away 
in the ship. The volume also sketches the life and experiences aboard 
the ship, and is exciting enough to satisfy the veriest boy." — ContribtC' 
tor, Bostoft. 



ADRIFT IN THE ICE-FIELDS. 

By Capt. C. W. HALL, autlior of "The Great Bonanza." 

i2mo. Illustrated. $1.50. 

"The author, Capt. Charles W. Hall, has done his work well. The 
narrative chronicles the adventures of a party during the early spring, 
while shooting sea-fowl on the sea-ice by day, and the stories by which 
they whiled away their long evenings, or their share in the social life 
of their neighbors. Later it describes the breaking-up of the ice, by 
which the hunters were forced into involuntary wandering, and recounts 
their perilous adventures, the hardships to which they were reduced, 
their final rescue by a sealing-steamer, and the curious life on board 
such a vessel. Incident to the work is an accurate description of the 
ice-fields of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and some picturesque studies of 
life among people of whom the most of us know very little. It is very 
graphically illustrated/ ^Demorest\^ Monthly. 



FROM HAND TO MOUTH, 

BY 

MISS A. M. DOUGLAS, 

author of 

In Trust, Stephen Dane, Nelly Kinnard's Kingdom, 

Claudia, Sydnie Adriance, Home Nook, 

Kathie Stories, etc. 

ISmo. Clotli. S1.50. 



^♦This volume, like all the works of this author, is well written and 
intensely interesting, though there is nothing sensational or strained in 
the plot, scenes, or characters. It is a story of homely, every-day life, 
just such as any of us may have seen ; and herein lies without doubt 
no little of the charm with which the gifted author has invested her 
story. It is a book that will be popular, and will survive the passing 
hour. — Bridgeport Farmer. 

" Another of Miss Douglas's pure and sensible stories, fully equal 
to ' Nelly Kinnard's Kingdom,' to say which is no slight praise. We 
know of no American author who excels Miss Douglas in her partic- 
ular line, — stories of every-day American home-life. We are glad to 
learn that the sale of her books is steadily on the increase. This fact 
shows that she is appreciated, and speaks well for the taste of our 
story-reading public. — Christian Leader. 



" The charm of the story is the perfectly natural and homelike air 
which pervades it. The young ladies are not stilted and shown off in 
their ' company manners,' but are just jolly home-girls, such as we like 
to find, and can find any day. There is real satisfaction in reading this 
book, from the fact that wft can so readily ' take it home * to our- 
selves. — Portland A rgus. 

" Amanda Douglas is one of the favorite authors among American 
novel-readers. She writes in a free, fresh, and natural way, and her 
characters are never (Overdrawn." — Manchester Mirror. 



SOLD BY all booksellers AND NEWS-DEALERS. 

LEE & SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS, 

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